Hermeneutic Interpretation

of the

Origin of the Social State of Man

and of the

Destiny of the Adamic Race

From the French

L'histoire philosophique du genre ilumain
By

Fabre d'Olivet

Done into English by

N ayan Louise Redfield

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
~be 'lmfcllet~kc J)tess
1915

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CoPVIUGBT, I9IS
BY
NAYAN LOUISE REDFIELD

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TO THE READER

T HE Translator offers no apology for the peculiarities or

eccentricities of the literary construction of the Author,
and after many months of conscientious work and faithful
research decided to adhere strictly to the subject-matter
contained in this volume of Fabre d'Olivet and translated
it without separating or re-arranging the Author's plan.
(Referring here to the division of the various books, parts,
explanatory notes, foot-notes, or any obsolete form of spelling
of foreign words.)
The Translator cannot ask the readers' indulgence in
more fitting words than in those in which the Author craves
their leniency: " If, after mature reflections, they judge that
I have been in error, I shall still rely upon the equity of
their judgment that they will at least believe in my sin-
cerity which makes ib impossible for me to wish to deceive
any one."
N. L. R.

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 Those on

the Path of I(nowing, seelt

the signs of guidance. Out

of the Universal, Truth calls Its

own, lighting its beaconfire upon

the mountain top, to attract the

wayfarlng pilgrim in the ualley.

To all who can see that

beacon-light, I, as a fellow

pilgrim, loulngly dedicate

this uolume.

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 TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD

FABRE D'OLIVET, the great metaphysician of Esoteri-

cism of the nineteenth century, who penetrated far
into the crypt of fallen sanctuaries to the tabernacle of the
most mysterious arcanas, was born Dec. 8, 1768, at Ganges,
Bas-Languedoc.
At an early age he came to Paris, and soon began to
devote himself with ardour to the study of ancient as well
as living languages, and the better to become initiated into
the mystical doctrines of the East, acquired Chinese, San-
scrit, Arabic, and Hebrew, for he had already a profound
knowledge of the sciences, philosophies, and literatures of
the West.
This man of genius, now almost forgotten-whom France
will one day be proud to honour when esoteric or religious
science is established upon its own irrefragable foundation
-this man who, transcendental in his intelligence and with
his attributes of seer, has "cleared the luminous path," has
penetrated the mysteries of the Bible, and given to us not
only the visions of a lost past, but has esoterically interpreted
its symbols.
He was never understood by his contemporaries, for he
was a century in advance of his day, and among them, when
he died in 1825, had but the reputation of a visionary or a
fool.
Of honourable and independent character, he worked
unreservedly, and while confined in a studious retreat he
saw the Revolution pass before him. In his researches of
vii

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viii Translator's Foreword
the languages he rejected what was clear, precise, and logical,
seeking always for the mystic, throwing himself into shadowy
regions where he sought to find unknown revelations.
Durozoir writes of him: "He pretends to have found the
key of the hieroglyphics, and also the means of restoring
hearing to deaf-mutes after a method borrowed from the
priests of ancient Egypt. . . . He attaches so great faith
to the power of the will, that he assures having often made
rays come from a volume of his library, by placing himself
in front of it and imagining strongly that the author in
person was before his eyes; this, he said, happened often to
Diderot...
His Les Vers dores de Pythagore, translated for the first
time in eumolpique' French,-that is to say, in harmonious
cadence,-precedes his Discours sur l' essence et la forme de la
poesie chez les principaux peuples de la terre; this was pub-
lished in 1813. The next work of this wonderful seer of the
prehistoric past of humanity, was La Langue Hebraique
restitute, published in 1815. It is in two parts, the first
being a dissertation on the origin of Speech, in which he
restores and proves the real meaning of the Hebrew words,
by root analysis; and the second part, a translation of the
Cosmogony of Moses, allegorically depicting the creation
of the world in general and Adam in the generic sense; Eve
as a faculty; and Noah, universal repose. This work was
placed on the Index at Rome by the papal decree March 26,
1825.
Fabre dOlivet, in his Hermeneutic Interpretation of the
Origin of the Social State of Man and of the Destiny of the
Adamic Race, sums up all his works. It is the history of
the White or Borean Race-ours; and is a condensation of
the destinies of this race, whose progressive development
he traces across time and space.
His Introductory Dissertation is a veritable chef-d!tBUwe;
it contains the motives by which he has been urged to write
efpo).li'Of, sweetly singing.

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 Translator's Foreword ix
this work; he shows that the knowledge of man is indispensa-
ble to the legislator and of what this knowledge consists;
he then defines the metaphysical constitution of man and
demonstrates that the latter is one of the three great powers
that rule the universe. In defining the other two, he estab-
lishes between them a distinction, to wit: the Will of man,
Destiny and Providence. Its occult sense has reference to
the first chapter of the Sepher of Moses.
What is remarkable in this study is the prophetic power
of the laws which are at stake. This is exercised not only
upon the past, but even upon our present; and all politicians,
all sociologists, all patriots ought, by meditating profoundly
upon the essence of the principles which d'Olivet describes,
to put themselves within reach of logically foreseeing the
solution of the national, international, and world-wide
problems which today occupy all intelligences.
NAYAN LouisE REDFIELD.
HARTFORD, CoNN.
July, 1915.

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..

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 INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION

PREAMBLE-PURPOSE OF TffiS WORK

T HE work that I am publishing on the social state of

man was destined at first to become part of a more
considerable work that I had planned upon the history of
the world and its inhabitants, and for which I had collected
much material. My intention was to present from the
same point of view, and in effective arrangement, a general
history of the globe that we inhabit, under all the relations
of history, natural and political, physical and metaphysical,
civil and religious, from the origin of things to their last
developments, in such a way as to describe without any
prejudice the cosmogonical and geological systems of all
peoples, their religious and political doctrines, their govern-
ments, customs, and diverse relations; the reciprocal influ-
ence which they exercise upon civilization, their movements
upon the earth, and the fortunate or unfortunate events
which describe their existence more or less agitated, more
or less long, more or less interesting; in order to draw from
all this, knowledge more extensive and more sure than has
hitherto been obtained upon the intimate nature of things,
and, above all, that of Man, whom it is most important to
understand.
When I conceived this plan, I was still young and full of
xi

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xii Introductory Dissertation
that hope that characterizes a presumptuous youth; I saw
no obstacles that could prevent my carrying through this
great plan. Proud of a certain moral force and determined
upon persistent labour, I believed that nothing could resist
the two-fold ascendancy of perseverance and the love of
truth. I devoted myself, therefore, to study with an insa-
tiable ardour, and I increased unceasingly my store of learn-
ing, not concerning myself with the use to which I might
one day put it. It must be said that I was forced somewhat
by my political position into the seclusion which necessitated
such devotion. Although I had not played a conspicuous
part in the course of the Revolution, and although I had held
myself equally apart from both factions, a stranger to all
intrigue, to all ambition, I had such relations with affairs
and men that my opinions and my personality could not
remain wholly in obscurity. Circumstances independent
of my will had caused my opinions to become known to
Bonaparte, exaggerating further in his eyes anything that
might have been contrary to his designs; so that since his
admittance to the Consulate, he had held against me a hatred
strong enough for him to determine to proscribe me without
motive, by expressly inserting my name among those of
two hundred unfortunates whom he sent to perish upon the
inhospitable shores of Africa. If by a signal favour of Pro-
vidence I survived this banishment, it would be necessary
for me to act with great prudence, as long as the reign of
Napoleon lasted, to evade the snares, which he might have
set for me.
My taste and my situation coincided therefore to make
me cherish the refuge and to devote my attention to study.
When resting a moment from my exploratory labours to
glance upon the results of my exploration, I beheld, however,
with some surprise that the greatest difficulties were not
where I had first magined them and that it was not so much
a question of collecting the materials to construct the edi-
fice that I meditated as of understanding well their nature,

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 Introductory Dissertation
in order to arrange them, not according to their form, but
according to their homogeneity; their form depending almost
always upon time and exterior circumstances while their
homogeneity belonged to the very essence of things. This
reflection having brought me to examine profoundly many
doctrines which the savants have classed ordinarily as in-
congruous and contrary, I convinced myself that this dis-
parity and this opposition consisted solely in the forms, the
basis being essentially the same. I presented henceforth
the existence of a great Unity, the eternal Source whence all
issues, and I saw clearly that men are not so far from the truth
as they generally believe. Their greatest error is in search-
ing for it where it is not, and in attaching it to forms, whereas
they ought, on the contrary, to avoid form in order to dwell
upon the essence; it should be borne in mind also that these
forms are very often their own creations, as was the case
with literary monuments of the highest importance such as
the cosmogony of Moses. I beg the liberty of pausing a
moment upon this extraordinary fact, because it will explain
many things that without this would later on appear obscure.
If when one wishes to write a history of the earth, one
takes this cosmogony according to its vulgar forms, such as
are given by erroneous translations, one suddenly finds a
shocking contradiction with the cosmogonies of the most
illustrious, the most ancient, and the most enlightened
nations of the world. Therefore it is wholly necessary either
to reject immediately the scheme first accepted or to consider
the sacred writers of the Chinese, Hindus, Persians, Chat-
deans, Egyptians, Greeks, Etruscans, and the Celts our
ancestors, as impostors or imbeciles; for all, without excep-
tion, give to the earth an antiquity incomparably greater than
this cosmogony. It would be necessary to overthrow all
the chronology of nations, to mutilate their history, to
belittle all the great things they had seen, to magnify all
that which to them had been imperceptible, and to renounce
that wisdom so extolled by the Egyptians,-that wisdom for

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xiv Introductory Dissertation
which the greatest men have searched at the peril of their
lives and of which Pythagoras and Plato have transmitted
to us incontestable monuments. But it is impossible to
reject such a cosmogony; since it serves as a basis for three
of the most powerful cults of the earth, whether by their
antiquity, their brilliancy, or their extent,-Judaism, Chris-
tianity, and Islamism-it is evident for whoever can perceive
divine things, that even through the thick veil which the
translators of Moses have spread over the writings of this
able theocrat, he will discover there unequivocal traces of
the inspiration by which it was animated. However, ought
one, in sanctioning this cosmogony such as is contained in
the vulgar translations, to continue to isolate it from the
rest of the world, regarding as impious or false all that which
is not comformable with it and treating the rest of the earth
as sacrilegious, as does enlightened and powerful Europe,
and behaving as she behaved some thousand years ago, in
regard to the small, ignorant, and poor country called Judea?
This would be still less possible.
Perhaps someone may say, why fret concerning a thing
that ought to be left to fall peaceably into oblivion? Books,
such as those written by Moses, were for times of obscurity.
The best thing to do in radiant ages such as ours is to aban-
don them to the people who reverence them without under-
standing them. The savants have no need of being
instructed in what the law-maker of the Hebrews thought
four thousand years ago in order to build the cosmogonical
and geological systems; our encyclopredias are full of admir-
able things on this subject. Admirable indeed, if one judges
by the number; but so vain, so futile, that whereas the book
of Moses has sustained itself for forty centuries and held the
attention of peoples, a few days suffice to overthrow those
with which one attempts to oppose him and to extinguish
the trifling sparks which are raised against this imposing
meteor.
Be assured, savants of the world, it is not in disdaining

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 Introductory Dissertation XV

the sacred books of nations that you show your knowledge;

it is in explaining them. One cannot write a history with-
out monuments and that of the world is no exception. These
books are the veritable archives wherein its deeds are con-
tained. It is necessary in exploring the venerable pages to
make comparison between them and to understand how to
find the truth, which often languishes there covered by the
rust of ages. I saw that if I wished to write a history of the
world, I ought to know the monuments which it contains
and above all to make sure that I was in a position to explain
them thoroughly. Now, that the cosmogony of Moses is
one of these monuments is assuredly beyond doubt. It
would, then, be ridiculous to pretend to ignore it while
passing along a route of which it occupies the whole extent.
But if the historian is forced, as I have said, to stop before
this colossal memorial and to adopt its principles, what will
become of all the other monuments which he will encounter
and wp.ose principles, equally imposing and venerable, will
be found contradicted? What will he make of all the modem
discoveries which cannot adapt themselves to it? Will he
say to evidence that it is deceiving and to experience that
it has ceased to demonstrate cause and effect? No; unless
ignorance and prejudice had previously tied a double band-
age over his eyes. This historian will without doubt reason
as I have reasoned in his place.
I say to myself: Since the Sepher of Moses, which con-
tains the cosmogony of this famous man, is evidently the
fruit of a sublime genius led by divine inspiration, it cannot
but contain true principles. If this genius has erred some-
times, it is only perhaps in the matter of inferences, in
overstepping the intermediary ideas or attributing to a
certain cause effects that belong to another; but these
trifling errors which result often from hastiness of peculiar
phrasing and the eclat of representations are mere nothings
in. comparison with the fundamental truth which is the soul
of the writings and which must be found essentially identical

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xvi Introductory Dissertation
in all the sacred books of the nations, emanating as his from
the unique and fecund Source whence flows all truth. If
it does not appear thus, it is because the Sepher, composed
in a language long since ignored or lost, is not longer under-
stood and because its translations have voluntarily or
involuntarily altered or perverted the sense.
Mter reasoning thus, I passed in order to its applica-
tion. I examined with all the care at my command the
Hebrew of the Sepher, and I was not long in perceiving, as
I have remarked elsewhere, that it was not expressed in the
vulgar translations, and that Moses said in Hebrew scarcely
a word of what his Greek and Latin translators made him
say.
It is utterly useless for me to repeat here at length, what
one can find entirely developed in the work that I have ex-
pressly written upon this subject; suffice it to say, for the
understanding of the latter, that the time which I had
planned for writing the history of the world, after I had
collected the material, was almost entirely employed in
explaining a single one of the monuments which contained
the material in part, so that this monument of irrefutable
authenticity should not contradict, by its formal opposition,
the ordinance of the edifice nor cause it to give way upon its
base, in refusing it its fundamental support. This explana-
tion even, made in the usual manner, did not suffice. It was
necessary to prove to others, with much labour and difficulty,
that which was so easy to prove to myself, and to restore
a language lost more than twenty-four centuries ago, to
create a grammar and a radical dictionary to support the
verbal translation of some chapters of the Sepher from a
mass of notes drawn from all the languages of the Orient,
and finally to increase twenty pages of the text to the extent
of two quarto volumes of explanations and proofs.
La langue Mbraique restituk, etc., in which is found the cosmogony of
Moses, such as is contained in the first ten chapters of BerttSh.ith, vulgarly
called Genesis.

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 Introductory Dissertation xvii

This was not all: in order to draw these two volumes from
the obscurity of my portfolio, where they would have un-
doubtedly remained for want of means to meet the con-
siderable expense of printing them, it was necessary to
attract attention to them, and this I could not do without
taking a stand which displeased Napoleon, at that time all
powerful; and this again made me the victim of a persecu-
tion, secret it is true, but none the less painful, since it
deprived me of the only means I had of subsistence. 1 My
two volumes were indeed printed, but much later and
through the co-operation of particular circumstances
which I can justly regard as providential.
The publication of my book upon the Hebraic language,
far from giving me the facilities upon which I was counting
in order to pursue my design for the history of the world,
seemed on the contrary to deprive me of them, by laying
myself open to metaphysical and literary discussions which
changing into dissensions carried their venom into the very
precincts of my domestic fireside.
The time, however, is passed and although favoured with
all the vigour of life, I have vainly tried to accomplish a
plan perhaps out of proportion to my physical and moral
power. Ought I to hope further for its attainment today,
since the autumn of my life is daily losing its ardour? It
would be presumption to believe it. But that which I shall
not be able to do, another may, under more fortunate condi-
tions, succeed in doing. My glory, if I obtain any, will be
in having traced and smoothed the way for him. Already
I have given him in my translation of the Sepher of Moses
an absolutely sure foundation. If I can ever finish the
commentary, I will show that the cosmogony of this great
man is conformable, on account of the essence of things,
with all the sacred cosmogonies admitted by the nations.
I will do for it what I did for the Vers dores of Pythagoras,
1 See a small brochure entitled: Notions sur le uns de l'tn~ie, etc., in which

it speaks in detail of these annoyances.

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xviii Introductory Dissertation
in the examinations of which I have proved that the philo-
sophical and theosophical ideas therein contained have been
the same in all time and among all men capable of conceiv-
ing them. I had previously pointed out the origin of poetry
and shown in what the essence differs from the form: this
pertains always to the history of the world; for the first
oracles were rendered in verse, and it is not without cause
that poetry has been named the language of the gods.
Among the fragments over which I had worked in order
to enter upon the great work of which I have spoken, the
most noteworthy are those dealing with the social state of
man and the diverse forms of government. Even if I had
not been urged to publish them, in order to furnish useful
material to those who wished to devote themselves to the
same studies as I, it seems to me that the threatening cir-
cumstances in which we are would have made me take that
resolve. All the world is occupied with politics; each one
dreams of his Utopia, and I do not see, among the innumer-
able works that appear on this matter, that any one touches
the real principle; the greater part, far from throwing a
light upon this important mystery of human society, upon
the bond which strengthens it and the legislation which
conducts it, seem destined, on the contrary, to cover it with
thickest gloom.
Those in general who write upon this serious subject,
more occupied with themselves and their particular passions
than with the universality of things of which the whole es-
capes them, circumscribe their views too much and show too
plainly that they know nothing of the history of the world.
Because they have heard of the Greeks and Romans, or
because they have read the annals of these two peoples in
Herodotus or Thucydides, in Titus Livius or Tacitus, they
imagine that all is known; deluded by their guides, intoxi-
cated with their own ideas, they trace in tum by a thousand
ways the same road in the shifting sands; they imprint with-
out cessation new steps upon effaced tracks and end always

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 Introductory Dissertation
by wandering in the deserts or by losing themselves in the
pitfalls. That which they lack is, I repeat, the knowledge
of the true principles, and this knowledge, which depends
upon that of the universality of things, is always produced
by it, or produces it irresistibly.
I have pondered long upon these principles and believe
I have penetrated them. My object is to make them known;
but this enterprise is not without some difficulty; for although
these principles have a name well known and extensively
used, it is more necessary that this name should give the
just idea of the immense thing that it expresses. It does
not suffice therefore to name these principles in order to give
even the vaguest knowledge concerning them; neither does
it suffice to define them, since any definition of principles is in-
complete for the reason that it defines that which is undefin-
able and gives limits to what has none. It is most necessary
to see them in action in order to comprehend them and to
try to distinguish them in their effect, since it is absolutely
impossible to understand them in their cause. These con-
siderations and others which will reveal themselves easily
in the course of this work, have actuated me to lay aside at
once the didactic or dogmatic form, substituting for it the
historic form, so that I might present in a narrative many
things whose development would otherwise have been pro-
hibited or would have been impeded by interminable delays.
This historic form which I have adopted in essence affords
many advantages, permitting me not only to put often
en scene and to personify likewise the political principles,
thereby making the action better felt; but it has given me
opportunity to present compendiously a particular picture
of the history of the world in its political relation, such as
I had originally conceived and already outlined in order to
make it form an integral part of the general picture with
which I was engaged. I dare to flatter myself that a reader,
curious to go back from effects to causes and to become
acquainted with prior events, will pardon me the well-known

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 Introductory Dissertation
details into which I am forced to enter, in favour of those
little known or completely ignored which I will demonstrate
to him for the first time. I think he will also permit me
several indispensable hypotheses in the transcendental
movement which I have taken towards the origin of human
societies. I assume that he will not ask of me historic
proofs of an epoch where no history exists and that he will
content himself with the moral or physical proofs which I will
give him-proofs drawn from rational deductions or from
etymological analogies. It will be sufficient for him to see,
when the historic proofs come, that they in no wise contra-
dict these primary hypotheses which they on the contrary
sustain and by which they are sustained. It only rests now
for me, in terminating this preamble, to say one word and
this word is perhaps the most important. We are about to
speak of Man, and this being is not yet known to us either
in his origin or in his faculties or in the hierarchical order
which he occupies in the universe. To recognize him in his
origin, that is to say, in his ontological principle, is useless
for us at the moment, since we have no need to know what
he has been outside the actual order of things, but only to
understand what he is in this order; thus we can leave to
cosmogony, of which ontology, properly speaking, constitutes
a part, the task of teaching us the origin of man as it taught
us the origin of the earth; it is in the writings of Moses and
other hierographical writers that we can learn these things;
but we cannot dispense with questioning the anthropological
knowledge if it exists or creating it if it does not exist, in
order to instruct ourselves concerning what Man is, consid-
ered as Man, what his moral and physical faculties are,
how he is constituted intellectually and physically, in the
same manner as we question geological or geographical
science, if we could occupy ourselves with the interior and
exterior forms of the earth. I assume that these last two
sciences are known to my readers, at least in general, and
that there are as many positive ideas upon physical man as

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 Introductory Dissertation xxi
is necessary in reading an ordinary history such as is com-
monly written. But my intention in treating of the social
state of Man and of the political and philosophical history
of Mankind is not to repeat what one finds everywhere, but,
on the contrary, to disclose new things and raise myself to
heights but little frequented. I must in advance make known
the intellectual and metaphysical constitution of Man, such
as I have conceived it, so that I can make myself understood
when I will speak of the successive development of the moral
faculties and of their action.

II

THAT THE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN IS INDISPENSABLE TO

THE LEGISLATOR--oF WHAT THIS KNOWLEDGE CONSISTS

I beg here a little more attention than one would ordin-

arily accord to a preliminary discourse, because it is not so
much a question of preparing the mind to receive certain
ideas as of putting it in condition to comprehend them well
before receiving them.
Since it is of Man and for Man that the political writers
and the legislators have written, it is evident that the first
and most indispensable knowledge for them ought to be,
Man; and nevertheless it is a knowledge that the majority
do not possess, that they do not seek to acquire, and that
they would have been often incapable of finding even if
they had sought it. They accept such a man as the natu-
ralists and the physicists present to them according to anthro-
pographical rather than to anthropological science, as an
animal making part of the animal kingdom and differing
from other animals only by a certain principle of reason,
which God or rather Nature, dignified by this name, had
given him, even as feathers had been given to the birds and
fur to the bears-that principle which causes him to be de-
signated by the epithet of rational animal. But considering

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xxii Introductory Dissertation
that the principle of reason, according to the most profound
physiologists, appears not to be foreign to certain classes of
animals, of dogs, horses, elephants, etc., and that one has
seen parrots learn even a language and avail themselves of
a word to express reasonable ideas, whether in replying to
questions or questioning one another, as Locke relates, it
follows from this observation that man enjoys this principle
only more or less in comparison with other animals, and that
he owes this accidental superiority only to the suppleness of
his limbs, to the perfection of his organs, which have per-
mitted his entire development. For example, to the form
of his hand has been attributed all the progress in sciences
and arts, and it is quite possible to imagine that a horse
might have equalled Archimedes as geometrician, or Timo-
theus as musician, if he had received from nature limbs as
supple and fingers as propitiously suitable. The prejudice
in this respect was so profoundly rooted that a modem
historian has even dared to assert that the only real difference
he had seen between animal and Man was that of apparel.
Another writer even more celebrated-considering that
superiority of reason which Man manifests at times, as a
false light which weakens the force of his instinct, deranges
his health, and troubles his repose to such a degree that he
becomes sick and troubled-stated that if nature had de-
stined us to be healthy, the man who meditates is a depraved
animal.
Now if by meditating only, Man becomes depraved, how
much the more if he contemplate, if he wonder, and, above
all, if he adore!
When, after having assumed similar premises, one reasons
upon the social state and, when seeing in Man only animal
more or less perfect, he is set up for a legislator, it is evident
that without being inconsistent, one can only offer instinctive
laws, the certain effect of which is to draw the human race
towards a rude and savage nature from which his intel-
ligence ever tries to separate him. It is indeed what other

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 Introductory Dissertation xxili

writers see who, uniting a very great exaltation of ideas

to the same ignorance of principles and finding themselves
frightened at the consequences, into which these dismal
preceptors have dragged them, throw themselves with vio-
lence to the opposite side and overleap the golden mean so
recommended by the sages. The former made of Man pure
animal; the latter made him pure intelligence. Some place
their basis upon his most physical needs; others upon his
most spiritual hopes, and, whereas the first confine him in a
material circle from which all the forces of his being urge
him to escape, the second lose themselves in the vaguest
abstractions, throwing him into a limitless sphere, at the
aspect of which even his imagination recoils terrified.
No; Man is neither an animal nor an intelligence; but an
intermediary being placed between matter and spirit, be-
tween heaven and earth as a link for them. The definitions
which one has tried to give him all fail through want or
excess. When one calls him a reasonable animal, one says
too little; when one designates him as an intelligence served
by the organs, one says too much. Man, even assuming
that his physical form is like that of an animal, is more than
reasonable; he is intelligent and free. Granting that he
may be an intelligence in his purely spiritual part, it is not
true that this intelligence is always served by the organs,
since these organs, visibly independent of it, are often carried
away by blind impulses and produce acts which are dis-
owned by it. If I were asked myself to give a definition of
Man, I should day that he is a sentient being, elevated to
the intellectual life, susceptible of admiration and of adora-
tion; or an intellectual being subject to the organs, suscept-
ible of degradation. But definitions, whatever they may
be, will always represent imperfectly a being so complicated;
it is better to try to understand him.
Let us examine for a moment the sacred archives of
Mankind.
The philosophers, naturalists, or experimentalists who

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have classed Man with animals, have committed an enor-
mous error. Deceived by their superficial observations,
by their trifling experiences, they have neglected to consult
the voice of centuries, the traditions of all peoples. If_they
had opened the sacred books of the most ancient writers of
the world, those of the Chinese, Hindus, Hebrews, or Par-
sees, they would have seen that the animal kingdom existed
tout entier before Man existed. At the time when Man
appeared upon the scene of the universe, he formed alone
a fourth kingdom, the Kingdom of Man. This kingdom is
called Pan-Kou by the Chinese, Pourou by the Brahmans,
Kai-Ormuzd or Meschia by the followers of Zoroaster, and
Adam by the Hebrews, and by all the people who accept the
Sepher of Moses, whether they link themselves with the
Gospel as Christians or trace their origin there by the Koran
and the Gospel, as Mussulmans. I know well that the
interpreters of these books, those who confine themselves
only to the literal and vulgar forms, who remain strangers
to the manner of the writings of the ancients, assume alike
today Pan-Kou, Pourou, Kai-Ormuzd, or Adam as a sole
man, the first individual of the species; but I have proved
sufficiently in my interpretation of the cosmogony of Moses,
contained in the first ten chapters of the Sepher, that it
should be understood by Adam not man in particular, but
Man in general, universal Man, Mankind complete, in
short, the Kingdom of Man. If circumstances permit me
some day to give the commentary upon the cosmogony which
I have promised, I will prove in the same manner that the
first man of the Chinese, Hindus, or Parsees, Pan-Kou, Pou-
rou, or Kai-Ormuzd, must be universally equal and conceived
not as a sole man, but as the union of all men who have
entered, are entering, or will enter the composition of this
great whole that we call the Kingdom of Man.
But supposing, finally, in spite of the many proofs brought
to the support of my interpretation, proofs which no one
has yet dared to attack seriously since they were issued and

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recognized five years ago-supposing, I say, that one accepted

Adam and the different cosmogonical beings which corre-
spond to him in the sacred books of all nations for an indi-
vidual man, it will remain always certain that all these
books agree in distinguishing these beings from the animal
kingdom, making them appear alone at a different epoch,
and making them the object of a special creation; and this
authorizes me sufficiently, not to confuse man with animals
by including him among them in the same category, but,
on the contrary, to make of the human race a superior
kingdom as I have done.
Besides, when one questions the most learned geologists,
those who have penetrated most deeply into the material
knowledge of our globe, they will tell you that, having at-
tained a certain depth, one finds no vestige, no trace an-
nouncing the presence of man in the first ages of the world,
whereas the debris and bones of animals are encountered
in profusion; and this accords perfectly with the sacred
traditions of which I have spoken. r
I have already had occasion in my Examens sur les Vers
dor~s of Pythagoras to speak of Man, and to unite as in a
sheaf the sacred traditions preserved in ancient mysteries,
the thoughts of the most celebrated theosophists and philo-
sophers, in order to form a whole which may enlighten us
as to the intimate essence of this being, so much more im-
portant and more difficult to understand since he does
not belong to a simple nature, material or spiritual, nor
even to a double nature both material and spiritual, but,
as I have shown in this work, to a triple nature, itself linked
If it had been my intention to write a work of erudition, I should have
been able to crowd it with citations and to call all antiquity in testimony not
alone of what I say here, but of what I shall say later on; but as this scholastic
display would tend to retard my progress in a work destined to present thoughts
rather than facts, I abstain and will abstain from citing any. I pray only
that the reader believe that all the authorities upon which I lean are unim-
peachable from the side of science and stand upon the most firm historic
baaes.

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with a fourth power which constitutes it. I shall reproduce
shortly the result of my earlier studies and I shall compare
with it traits disseminated elsewhere, adding some develop-
ments which meditation and experience have suggested to
me since. First let me lay down some general ideas.
At the time Man appeared upon earth, there existed three
kingdoms, which formed the whole and divided it. The
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdom had been the object
of three successive creations, appearances, or developments.
Man, or rather the Kingdom of Man, was the fourth. The
interval which separated these diverse appearances is
measured in the Sepher of Moses by a word which expresses
a phenomenal manifestation; so that, taking it in its most
restricted sense, one is able to make it signify, a day; but
this sense is evidently unnatural and one cannot refuse to
see here a period of time undetermined, always relative to
the existence to which it is applied. Among the nations
of which I have spoken, where the several developments of
nature are found expressed very nearly as in the Sepher of
Moses, one ordinarily measures this period by the duration
of the great year, equivalent to that astronomical revolu-
tion called today the precession of the equinoxes, or by one
of its divisions; so that one can conceive it as nine, eighteen,
twenty-seven, or thirty-six thousand of our ordinary years.
But whatever may be the temporal length of this period,
called by Moses a manifestation, an immensity, a sea, or a
day, is not the question here; the important point is to
have demonstrated by the agreement of all the cosmogonies
that Man was never included in the animal kingdom. This
kingdom as well as the other two inferior kingdoms, the
vegetable and mineral, were comprised in his and were
entirely subordinate to him.
Man, destined to be the link which unites Divinity to
matter, was, according to the expression of a modem natural-
ist, a chain of communication between all beings. Placed
on the confines of two worlds he became the means of exal-

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 WILL
INTELLIGENCE

SCIENCE IGNORANCE
<+l (-)

INSTINCT /BRUTISHNESS
(+} (-)
VIRTUE: VICE:
<+l \ ( - )

SCNTIMNT SCNSATION
LOVC HATC PLEASURE PAIN
(+) (-) (+) (-)

EXPLANATORY PLAN BY PAPUS OF

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN

ACCORODIG TO FABRE 0'0LIVET

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oigiized by Goog le
 Introductory Dissertation xxvii
tation in the body and that of abasement in the divine spirit.
The perfected essence of the three kingdoms of nature is
united in him to a will power, free in its scope, which makes
him the living type of the universe and the image of God
Himself. God is the centre and the circumference of all
that which is; Man, the image of God, is the centre and the
circumference of the sphere which he inhabits; nothing else
exists in this sphere, which may be composed of the four
essences; it is he whom Pythagoras thus designates by his
mysterious verse:
Immense et pur symbole,
Source de Za nature, et modele des Dieux.
The conception of all things is congeneric with Man;
the knowledge of immensity and of eternity is in his under-
standing. Often, it is true, thick darkness deprives him
of its use and discernment; but the assiduous exercise of his
faculties will suffice to change this darkness into light and
to render unto him the possession of its treasures. Nothing
can resist the power of his will, when this will, moved by
divine love, principle of all virtue, acts in accord with
Providence. But without engaging further in these ideas
which will better find their place elsewhere, let us continue
our researches.

III

INTELLECTUAL, METAPHYSICAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN

Man, as I have said, belongs to a triple nature; he can

therefore live a triple life: instinctive, animistic, or intel-
lectual. When these three lives are developed, they become
blended in a fourth which is the individual and volitive life
of this wonderful being whose immortal source is in life and
the divine will. Each of these lives has its particular centre
and appropriate sphere.

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I shall try to present to the mind of the reader a meta-
physical view of the intellectual constitution of Man; but
I forewarn him that he must think of nothing material in
what I shall say regarding this. Although I may be obliged,
in order to make myself understood, to use terms that will
recall physical objects, such as those of centre, sphere, cir-
cumference, radius, etc., one must not think that anything
physical, and above all anything mechanical, enters into
these things. These words, which lacking others I shall
employ, should be understood by the mind alone and
abstraction made of all material conceptions.
Man, then, spiritually considered, in the absence of his
physical organs, can be conceived under the form of a lumi-
nous sphere, in which three central fires give birth to three
distinct spheres, all three enveloped by the circumference
of this sphere. From each of these three fires radiates one
of the three lives of which I have spoken. To the inferior
fire belongs the instinctive life; to the median fire, the animis-
tic life; and to the superior fire, the intellectual life. Among
these three vital centres, the animistic is to be regarded as
the fundamental point, premier mobile upon which rests and
moves all the edifice of the human spiritual being. This
centre in unfolding its circumference touches the other two
centres and unites with itself the opposite points of the two
circumferences which they unfold, so that the three vital
spheres in moving one in the other communicate their diverse
natures and carry from one to the other their reciprocal
influence.
As soon as the first potential movement is given to the
human being and as it passes into action by an effort of his
nature, determined by the first Cause of all beings, the
instinctive fire attracts and develops the elements of the
body; the animistic fire creates the soul, and the intellectual
perfects the mind. Man therefore is composed of body,
soul, and mind. To the body belong the necessities; to the
soul, the passions; to the mind, the inspirations.

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In proportion as each central fire grows and radiates,

it unfolds a circumference which, being divided by its own
rays, presents six luminous points, each of which manifests
a faculty, that is to say, a particular mode of action accord-
ing to the life of the animistic, instinctive, or intellectual
sphere.
In order to avoid confusion, we shall name only three of
these faculties upon each circum'erence, which will give us
nine in all, namely;
For the instinctive sphere: sensation, instinct, common
sense.
For the animistic sphere: sentiment, understanding,
reason.
For the intellectual sphere: assent, intelligence, sagacity.
The origin of all these faculties is first in the instinctive
sphere; it is there that they have birth and receive their
first forms.
The other two spheres, which are not developed until
later, acquire their relative faculties only secondarily and
by transformation, that is to say, that the instinctive sphere
being entirely developed and bearing by its circumferential
point, sensation for example, to the animistic centre, this
centre is agitated and, unfolding itself, takes possession of
this faculty which excites it and transforms sensation into
sentiment. This sentiment, carried in the same way to the
intellectual centre and when all the conditions are ful:filled
for this, is seized in its turn by this centre and transformed
into assent. Thus instinct, properly speaking, passing from
the instinctive sphere into the animistic, is there transformed
into understanding; and understanding becomes intelligence
in consequence of its course from this last sphere to the
intellectual. This transformation takes place for all the
other faculties of this kind, whatever the number may be.
But this transformation which takes place upon the
faculties of the sensation class-which I consider as cir-
cumferential affections, and consequently exterior-acts

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also upon the necessities which are central interior affections;
so that necessity, carried from the instinctive centre to the
animistic centre, there becomes or can become passion, and,
if this passion passes from the animistic centre to the intel-
lectual centre, it can there assume the character of an inspira-
tion and react upon the passion as passion reacts upon
necessity.
At present, let us consider that all circumferential affec-
tion of the sensation class excites a movement more or less
vigorous in the instinctive centre and that it is immediately
represented there as pleasure or pain, according as the move-
ment is agreeable or disagreeable and whether it has its
source in physical good or evil. The intensity of pleasure or
pain is relative to that of the movement excited and to its
nature. If this movement has a certain force, it produces,
according as it is agreeable or painful, two inevitable effects:
the attraction which attracts it or the fear which repels it;
if it is weak and doubting it produces indolence. In the
same manner as the instinctive centre perceives by sensa-
tion the physical good or evil under the name of pleasure
or pain, the animistic centre develops by sentiment the
moral good or evil, under the name of love or hatred, and
the intellectual centre represents the intellectual good or
evil under the name of truth or error. But these inevitable
effects of attraction or fear, which attach themselves to the
instinctive sensation, according as it excites pleasure or pain,
do not survive this sensation but disappear with it; whereas
in the animistic sphere the sentiment which brings forth
love or hatred, drawing likewise two certain effects, desire
and terror, far from disappearing with the cause of the senti-
ment which has produced them, persists, on the contrary,
a long while after with this same sentiment, assuming the
character of passions and inviting or repelling the cause
which brought them forth. The notable difference of in-
stinctive li,fe and of animistic life is there; the attentive and
curious reader should take notice of this and reflect upon it.

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Instinctive sensations are all actual and their effects instan-

taneous; but animistic sentiments are durable, independent
of the physical movement which produces them. As for
intellectual assents which affirm truth or error, they are
not only durable as sentiments, but are influential even
more after they have passed.
Indolence, which excites a movement weak or doubtful
in the physical sensation, is transformed into apathy in the
moral sentiment and into a sort of indifference in the intel-
lectual assent which confuses truth and error and leaves one
as unconcerned as the other. This condition, habitual in
the infancy of the individual as in the infancy of the kingdom,
rules equally in that of society.
This triple form existence of man-although it may appear
already very complicated on account of the many actions
and reactions which operate incessantly some with regard
to others: the instinctive necessities, the animistic passions,
and the intellectual inspirations-would still be very simple
and would offer scarcely more than a being acting under
necessity if we had not to consider this fourth life which
includes the other three and gives to man the_.liberty which
he could not have without it.
Let us redouble our attention here, for the subject is
important and difficult.
In the very centre of the animistic sphere, primal cause
of the spiritual human being, is another centre which is
inherent there, the circumference of which, in unfolding,
r As it has not been my intention to give here a complete system of anthro-
pological science, but only to establish the principles of it, I shall neither
enter into the detail of all the transformations which take place in the neces-
sities, passions, or inspirations of all sorts, which bring them forth and perfect
them; nor into that still more considerable detail of the innumerable vibra
tions, which are brought into sensations, sentiments, or assents by the six
senses with which man is endowed: touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight, and
the mental sense; which uniting all the others, conceives, compares, and re-
stores them to the unity from which their nature has estranged them. Such
a labour would require alone a long work which would of necessity go beyond
the limits of a simple dissertation.

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touches the extreme points of the instinctive and intellectual
spheres and likewise envelops them. This fourth sphere,
in the interior of which the three spheres of the instinct,
soul, and mind are moved into place according to the mode
which I have tried to describe, is that of the efficient and
volitive power, whose essence, emanated from the Divinity,
is indestructible and incontestable as It. This sphere
whose life incessantly radiates from the centre to the circum-
ference, can expand or contract itself in the ethereal sphere,
to bounds which might be called infinite, if GOD were not
the sole infinite Being. And this is the luminous sphere
which I mentioned in the beginning of this article.
When this sphere is sufficiently developed, its circum-
ference, determined by the extent of its rays, admits of a
great number of faculties, some primordial, others secondary,
weak at first, but which gradually strengthen in proportion
as the ray which produces them acquires force and grandeur.
Among these faculties we shall enumerate only twelve, six
primordial and six secondary, commencing with the most
inferior and finishing with the highest.
These twelve faculties are: attention and perception, re-
flection and repetition, comparison and judgment, retention
and memory, discernment and comprehension, imagination
and creation.

Volitive power, which carries its faculties everywhere

with it, places them where it wills in the instinctive, ani-
mistic, or intellectual sphere; for this power is always where
it wills to be. The triple life which I have described is its
domain; it uses it as it wills, nothing being able to attack
its liberty but itself, as I shall relate in the continuation of
this work.
As soon as a sensation, sentiment, or assent is manifested
in one of the three lives which are submissive to it, it has
perception by the attention that it gives to them, and, using
its faculty to procure repetition even in the absence of their

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cause, it examines them by reflection. The comparison that
it makes according to the type of what it approves or dis-
approves determines its judgment. Mterwards it forms
memory by the retention of its own labour, reaches the point
of discernment, and consequently comprehension, and finally
assembled and brought together by imagination, the ideas
disseminated, it arrives at the creation of its thought. It
is indeed wrong as one sees, that in the vulgar language one
confuses an idea with a thought. An idea is the simple
effect of a sensation, sentiment, or assent; whereas a thought
is a complex effect, a result sometimes immense. To have
ideas is to feel; to have thoughts is to act.
The same operation that I have just described concisely,
takes place in the same manner, in the necessities, passions,
and inspirations; but in this last case the labour of the
volitive power is central; whereas in the first case, it was
circumferential. It is here that this magnificent power,
shown in all its splendour, becomes the type of the universe
and merits the name of microcosm, which all antiquity
has given it.
Just as the instinctive sphere acts by necessity, the
animistic by passion, the intellectual by inspiration, the
volitive sphere acts by determination, and upon that depends
the liberty of Man, his force, and the manifestation of his
celestial origin. Nothing is so simple as this action which
the philosophers and the moralists have had so much trouble
to explain. I shall endeavour to make it understood.
The presence of a necessity, a passion, or an inspiration
excites in the sphere, where it is produced, a rotary move-
ment more or less rapid, according to the intensity of the
one or the other; the movement is ordinarily called appetite
or appetence in the instinct, emotion or consent in the soul
and in the mind; often these terms are substituted for each
other and are changed by synonyms, the sense of which
expresses more or less the force in the movement. The
volitive power which is disturbed has three determinations

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of which it is free to make use: first, it yields to the movement,
and its sphere turns to the same side as the agitated sphere;
secondly, it resists and turns to the opposite side; third, it
remains in repose. In the first case it allows itself to be
compelled by the instinct, drawn along by the soul or stirred
by the mind, and connives with necessity, passion, or
inspiration; in the second it resists them and deadens their
movement by its own; in the third it suspends or rejects
acquiescence and considers what is most fitting to do. What-
ever may be its determination, its efficient will, which is mani-
fested freely, finds the means of serving its diverse appetites,
of resisting them or meditating upon their causes, their
forms, and their consequences. These means, which are
in continuous radiation from the centre to the circumference
and from the circumference to the centre, are very numerous.
I shall here describe only those which attach themselves most
particularly to the twelve faculties already named:
Attention and perception act by individualization and
numeration.
Reflection and repetition, by decomposition and analysis . .
Comparison and judgment, by analogy and synthesis.
Retention and memory, by method and category.
Discernment and comprehension, by induction and
deduction.
Imagination and creation, by abstraction and generaliza-
tion.
The employment of these means and of many others
that would be too long to name is called meditation. Medi-
tation constitutes the force of the will which employs it.
The acquiescence of this will or its resistance, according as
they are well or badly applied, according as they are simul-
taneous or a long time debated, makes of man a being either
powerful or weak, elevated or base, wise or ignorant, virtuous
or vicious; oppositions, contradictions, storms of all sorts
which arise in his breast have no cause other than the move-
ments of the three vital spheres, instinctive, animistic, and

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intellectual, often opposed to each other and more often
still contradictory to the regular movement of the volitive
will, which refuses its definite adherence or which gives it
only after violent combats.
When the determinations of the will take place upon
objects of the source of sensation, sentiment, or assent,
acquiescence or resistance follows simultaneously the impulse
of instinct, understanding, or intelligence and bears their
name : when they are preceded by meditation,they assume
the character of common sense, reason, or sagacity and are
said to belong to them and even to be their own creation.
After having traced this rapid outline of the intellectual
and metaphysical constitution of man, there is no need, I
think, to say that it is only sketched and that it demands,
on the part of whoever would grasp it in its entirety or in
its details, a concentrated attention and repeated study.
I should indeed have liked to spare my readers so much
trouble, and perhaps they will think that I should have
succeeded, if I had gone into more details myself; but they
are mistaken; I should only have lengthened my descrip-
tion with no result other than lessening the clearness of it.
I have said all that was essential to say; I have exercised
great care in the examination of the subject as a whole. As
to the details, it is necessary to avoid them as much as one
can in a subject where they are infinite, as is precisely the
case here. Besides, in the work which follows, there will
be many opportunities of applying and developing the prin-
ciples which I have laid down. All that remains for me now
to do is to anticipate several difficulties which might be
found in their application.
Man, never having been analysed before as vigorously
in his ensemble, and his metaphysical anatomy never having
been so plainly presented, one is accustomed very often to
take for the whole, only one of his parts and call it soul,
for example, not only the soul, properly speaking, but also
the three vital spheres and even the volitive sphere which

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envelops them. Other times one is content to name this
ensemble, mind, in opposition to body, and then, again,
intelligence, in opposition to instinct. Sometimes one has
considered understanding alone as the union of all the facul-
ties, and reason as the universal rule, true or false, of all the
determinations of the will. This abuse of terms will not be
dangerous when it can be appreciated. What we have done
by force of habit, we can continue for the convenience of
the discourse and to avoid the prolixity of disconcerting
verbosity; but we must take care not to do it through ignor-
ance. If we would know Man in himself, we must consider
him such as I have just described, for he is thus.
When I say, however, that Man is thus, it ought to be
understood only as Man in general, considered abstractly
in the possibility of his essence. Even today when the
kingdom of Man enjoys great power in nature, the individual
man is very rarely developed in all his mental modifications.
In the infancy of the kingdom, the mass of humanity was
far from being that which it is at present; the preponderating
life in the individual was the instinctive life; the animistic
shed only feeble lights, and the intellectual existed as yet
only in the germ. Just as one sees an infant, born with
weak organs, deprived even of the greater part of his physical
senses, without any sign of the imposing faculties which he
is one day to have, develop himself little by little, gather
strength, acquire hearing and sight which he lacked, grow,
understand his needs, manifest his passions, give proofs of
his intelligence, instruct himself, enlighten himself, and
become at last a man perfect through the use of his will,
so must one consider the Kingdom of Man, passing through
all the phases of infancy, adolescence, youth, and manhood.
An individual man is to a great nation what a great nation
is to the kingdom in general. Who knows, for example, how
many men have completed their career from the earliest
dawn of life to its extreme decline among the peoples of
Assyria or of Egypt, during the long existence of these

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two peoples? And who knows how many similar peoples
are destined yet to shine and to become extinct upon
the scene of the world before universal Man reaches
caducity?
In tracing this metaphysical picture, I have considered
Man in the greatest development that he can attain today.
This same development does not belong to all men; it does
not belong even to the majority of them. Nature does not
make men equal; souls differ still more than bodies. I have
already announced this great truth in my Exa.mens des Vers
dor~s of Pythagoras, in showing that such was the doctrine
of the mysteries and the thought of all the sages of anti-
quity. Equality without doubt is in the volitive essence of
all, since this essence is divine; but inequality insinuates
itself into the faculties by diversity of employment and dif-
ference of exercise; time is not measured equally for all;. posi-
tions have changed, courses of life have become shortened
or lengthened, and, although it is certain that all men
having proceeded from the same principle must anif'e
at the same end, there are many, and indeed the greatest
number, who are very far from arriving; whereas some have
already done so, others are about to, and many, obliged to
recommence their course, could not have escaped the no-
thingness which would have engulfed them if the eternity of
their existence had not been assured by the eternity of its
Author.
The animistic equality is then in the actuality of things
a chimera still greater than the equality of the instinctive
forces of the body.
Inequality is everywhere and in the intelligence still
more than in all the rest, since it is among existing. men and
above all among a great number of men whose civilization
is only sketched, whose intellectual centre is not yet on the
path of development. As for political inequality, we shall
see, further on in the work which follows, what one should
think regarding it.

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IV
MAN IS ONE OF THE THREE GREAT POWERS OF THE UNIVERSE
-WHAT THE OTHER TWO ARE

Let us avoid the mistake which nearly all philosophers

have made, especially in these modem times, and let us
consider that if it is ridiculous to pretend to write upon Man
without knowing him, it is both ridiculous and odious pre-
tending to trace a course for him without being perfectly
informed about his starting point, the goal for which he
strives, and the purpose of his journey. Let us, above all,
understand his position, and, since he himself is a power,
let us try with attention to find what are the superior or
inferior powers with which he must come in contact.
That universal Man is a power is averred by all the
sacred codes of nations; it is felt by all the sages; it is even
avowed by all true savants. I read in a Dictionnaire d'his-
kire naturelle, printed quite recently, these remarkable
phrases: Man possesses the essence of organizing power;
it is in his brain that the intelligence that governs the forma-
tion of beings is confined. . . . He is born the minister and
interpreter of the divine Will over all that which breathes.
. . . The sceptre of the earth is entrusted to him." About
fifteen centuries before our era, Moses had put these words
in the mouth of the Divinity addressing Man: "Be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it: and
have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of
the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth." And, a long time before Moses, the legislator of the
Chinese had said, in suitable words without figures of speech,
that Man is one of the three powers which rule the Universe.
It would be better, without doubt, to receive these texts
and an infinite number of others that I could cite in the same
sense, than to believe with Anaxagoras, whose belief was
followed by Helvetius, that man is an animal whose whole

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 Introductory Dissertation xxxix
intelligence comes from the conformation of his hand, or
with Hobbes, followed by Locke and Condillac, that there
is nothing innate in him, that he can use nothing without
practice, and that he is born wicked and in a state of warfare
with his fellow creatures.
But, although it be very true, as all sages and theoso-
phists affirm in attesting the name of the Divinity, that
Man is a power destined by the eternal Wisdom to dominate i
inferior nature, to restore harmony in the discord of its
elements, to render co-ordinate its three kingdoms, and to
raise them from diversity to unity, it is, however, not true,
as men more enthusiastic than judicious have believed with-
out reflection and without examination, that this power
should appear upon the earth all made, provided with all
its forces, possessing all its developments and, so to speak,
descending from heaven surrounded by a glory gathered
without trouble and with knowledge acquired without pain.
This exaggerated idea which issues from the golden mean,
so recommended by the sages, issues also from the truth.
Man is a power without doubt, but a power in the germ,
which, in order to manifest his properties so as to attain
the height to which his destiny calls him, has need of an
interior action stimulated by the exertion of an exterior
action upon it. He is a celestial plant whose roots attached
to the earth can suck up the elementary forces so as to per-
fect them by a particular process; and which, raising little
by little its majestic trunk, covering itself in its season with
flowers and intellectual fruits, matures them in the rays of
the divine Light, and offers them in sacrifice to the God of
the Universe.
This comparison, which is very just, can be continued.
A tree, while it is still young, bears as yet no fruits, and the
husbandman does not expect it, for he knows that its greatest
importance and usefulness exact a longer elaboration and
render its fruits less forward; but when the time has come
to reap the harvest he does so and each season which renews

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:d Introductory Dissertation
it must augment the quantity of its fruits, if the excellence
of the tree responds to the excellence of the cultivation.
When, without injury to its fruitfulness, by exterior acci-
dents, tempests, or destructive winds, the harvest fails
many times in succession, the tree is reputed bad and de-
fective and it is as such, following the forcible expression of
Jesus, tom up and cast into the fire.
Now, cultivation is to the tree what civilization is to
Man. Without the former, the plant, abandoned to a poor
and degraded Nature, would bear only ordinary flowers
without lustre, only fruits lacteous or resinous, insipid, or
bitter and often poisonous; without the latter, Man, delivered
to a cruel sort of Nature, severe with him because she does
not recognize him as her ovm child, would develop only
savage faculties and would offer only a character of a being
out of place, suffering and ferocious, greedy and unfortunate.
It is therefore upon civilization that all in Man depends;
it is then upon his social state that the edifice of his grandeur
is established. Let us look carefully at these important
points; let us not fear to make a study of them. There is
no object more worthy of our examination, no study whose
results promise us more advantages.
But if Man is, at first, as I have just said, only a power in
germ which civilization must develop, whence will come to
him the principles of this indispensable culture? I reply
that it will be from the two powers to which he finds himself
linked and of which he must form the third, according to the
tradition of the Chinese theosophist already cited. These
two powers, between which he finds himself placed, are
Destiny and Providence. Beneath him is Destiny, nature
necessitee et naturee; above him is Providence, nature lilwe
et naturante. He is himself, as Kingdom of Man, the media-
tory will, the efficient form, placed between these two natures
to serve them as a link, a means of communication and
to unite two actions, two movements, which would be
incompatible without him.

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 Introductory Dissertation xli

The three powers, which I have just named-Providence,

Man, considered as the Kingdom of Man, and Destiny-
constitute the universal ternary. Nothing escapes their
action; all is subject to them in the universe; all except
God Himself who, enveloping them in His unfathomable
Unity, forms with it the Sacred Tetrad of the ancients,
that immense quarternary, which is All in All and outside
of which there is nothing.
I shall have much to say in the following work concerning
these three powers, and I shall describe as much as is possible
for me, their respective action and the part that each of them
takes in the diverse events which vary the scene of the world
and change the face of the universe. They will be seen
appearing together for the first time as motive causes inde-
pendent one of the other, although equally bound to the
unique Cause which rules them, acting according to their na-
ture, jointly or separately, and giving thus sufficient cause for
all things. These three powers considered as primal causes
are very difficult to define; for, as I have already announced,
one would never be able to define a principle; but they can
be known by their acts and grasped in their movements,
since they do not leave the sphere in which individual man
is included as an integral part of Universal Man. What
opposes the idea that God may be known and grasped in
the same manner as these three powers which emanate from
Him is the fact that this absolute Being contains them
without being contained and enchains them without being
enchained. He holds, according to the beautiful metaphor
of Homer, the golden chain which envelops all beings and
which descends from the heights of brilliant Olympus to
the centre of shadowy Tartarus; but this chain which He
moves at His pleasure leaves Him always immobile and
free. Let us content ourselves to adore in silence this in-
effable Being-this God besides whom there is no other
god and, without seeking to sound His fathomless essence,
search to understand the powerful ternary in which He is

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xlii Introductory Dissertation
reflected: Providence, Man, and Destiny. What I am
about to say here will be in substance only what I have
already said in my Examens sur les Vers dores of Pythagoras
or elsewhere; but in a subject so exacting it is impossible
not to repeat oneself.
Destiny is the inferior and instinctive part of Universal
Nature which I have called nature naturee. Its own action
is called fatality. The form by which it manifests itself to
us is called necessity; it is this which links cause and effect.
The three kingdoms of the elementary nature, mineral,
vegetable, and animal, are the domain of Destiny; that is to
say, everything comes to pass in a manner fatal and forced,
according to laws determined beforehand. Destiny gives
the principle of nothing but takes possession of it as soon as
it is given in order to dominate the consequences. It is by
the necessity of these consequences alone that it influences
the future and makes itself felt in the present; for all that it
possesses personally is in the past. Thus by Destiny we
understand that power by which we conceive that_ the things
created are created, that they are thus and not otherwise,
and that once placed according to their nature they have
forced results which are developed successively and
necessarily.
At the time when Man appears upon the earth he belongs
to Destiny, which for a long time involves him in the vortex
of fatality. But, although plunged in this vortex and at
first subject to its influence as all elementary beings, he
carries in him a divine germ which never could entirely be
confused with him. This germ, reacted upon by Destiny
itself, develops to oppose it. It is a spark of the divine Will
which, participating in the universal life, comes into the
elementary nature to restore harmony in it. As this germ
develops, it operates according to its energy upon forced
things, and operates freely upon them. Liberty is its es-
sence. The mystery of its principle is such that its energy
augments proportionably as it exerts itself and that its

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 Introductory Dissertation xlili
force although indefinitely restrained is never vanquished.
When this germ is entirely developed, it constitutes the
Will of the Universal Man, one of three great powers of the
Universe. This power, equal to that of Destiny which is
inferior to it and even to that of Providence which is superior
to it, is quickened only by God Himself to whom the others
are equally subjected, each according to his rank, as I have
already said. It is the Will of Man, which, as powerful
medium, unites Destiny and Providence; without it, these
two extreme powers not only would never unite, but they
would not even understand each other. This Will, in re-
vealing its activity, modifies the coexistent things, creates
new ones which become immediately the property of Destiny,
and prepares for the future mutations in that which was
made and necessary consequences in that which is about
to be.
Providence is the superior and intellectual part of Uni-
versal Nature, which I have called nature naturante. It is
a living law emanating from the Divinity, by means of
which all things are determined with power to be. All
inferior principles emanate from it; all causes draw from its
depths their origin and their force. The aim of Providence
is the perfection of all beings, and this perfection it receives
from God H:mself, the irrefutable Type. The means that
it has to attain this end is what we call Time. But time
does not exist for it according to our ideas. It conceives
it as a movement of eternity. This supreme power acts
only immediately upon universal things; but this action
by a chain of consequences can make itself felt as a mediator
for particular th:ngs; so that the smallest details of human
life can be interested in it, or can be deducted from it, ac-
cording as they are bound by invisible bonds to universal
events. Man is a divine germ which it sows in the fatality
of Destiny, so as to change it and to render it master by
means of the Will of this mediatory being. This Will,
being essentially free, can exercise itself as well upon the

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xliv Introductory Dissertation
action of Providence as upon that of Destiny; but with this
difference, however, that, if it really changes the event of
Destiny which was fixed and necessary and that by oppos-
ing necessity to necessity and Destiny to Destiny, it can do
nothing against the providential event precisely because
it is indifferent in its form and because it always reaches its
goal by ariy route whatsoever. It is time and form alone
which vary. Providence is enchained neither by the one
nor the other. The only difference is for Man, who changes
the forms of life, shortens or lengthens time, enjoys or suffers,
according as he accomplishes good or evil; that is to say,
according as he unites his particular action to the universal
action or as he discriminates it.
This is what I can say in general of these three great
powers which compose the universal ternary and of the
action upon which all things depend. I feel certain that
the reader, indifferently attentive, will find what I have
just said somewhat unsatisfactory and will probably com-
plain of the vagueness and obscurity of my expressions; but
it is not my fault if the material is in itself vague and obscure.
If the distinction to be made between Providence, Destiny,
and the Will of Man had been so easy, if one had been able
to arrive without painful efforts at the understanding of these
three powers, and if to the evidence of their existence one
could have joined the clear and precise classification of their
attributes, I know no reason why in these modern times,
any savant could not have described their respective action,
or have tried to establish upon it the bases of their sys-
tems, physical as well as metaphysical, political as well as reli-
gious. There should necessarily be some difficulty in making
the distinction which I am attempting for the first time since
Pythagoras or Kong-Tzee, as the majority of the writers
who have preceded me have seen only one principle where
there are three. Some, as Bossuet, have attributed all to
Providence; others, as Hobbes, have made all proceed from
Destiny; and still others, as Rousseau, have wished to re-

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 Introductory Dissertation xlv
cognize everywhere only the Will of Man. Many men have
gone astray following the coldness of their reason or the
rage of their passions, and have believed that they saw the
truth as much in the writings of Hobbes as in those of Rous-
seau, and this, because Destiny and the Will, which both
have chosen for the unique motive of their meditations, are
easier to grasp than Providence, whose course more lofty
and almost always covered with a veil, demands, in order
to be perceived, a more calm intelligence, and, in order to
be admitted, a faith less bound by the instinctive reason
and less troubled by the tempests of the animistic passions.
I should like very much to be able to respond to the
expectations of my readers in the manner of the geometrician,
to be able to demonstrate to them the three powers in ques-
tion, and to teach them to understand these directly, wher-
ever their own action manifests itself; but that would be
an enterprise as vain as ridiculous. Such a demonstration
cannot be contained in a syllogism; a knowledge so extensive
cannot result from a dilemma.
Whatever words I employ, the meditation of the reader
must supply the insufficiency of the discourse. I should
regard myself very fortunate if, after having reached the end
of the work in which I am about to engage, this demonstra-
tion was found in the ensemble of facts and this knowledge
in their comparison and in the application that a judicious
reader will not fail to make. I shall neglect nothing in
order to facilitate this labour for him, and I shall seize all
occasions which present themselves to retrace the general
ideas that I have given and to strengthen them by examples.
This Introductory Dissertation could be terminated
here, since, after having explained the reason and the sub-
ject of my work, and after having presented the analysis
of the faculties of the being, who ought to be the principal
object, I have revealed in advance the motive causes of the
events whick I am about to describe in it; however, to reply
as much as is possible to the desire of several friends whose

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I

xlvi Introductory Dissertation

approbation is precious to me and who have pressed me to
enter into several new details in regard to what I understand
by the three great powers which rule the universe, I shall
add, to what I have said in general, an example in particular,
taken from the vegetable kingdom-that one of the three
inferior kingdoms where the action of these three powers,
more balanced and more uniform, appears to offer more
influence in the examination.
Let us take an acorn. In this acorn is contained the
life proper of an oak, the future germination of the tree
which bears this name, its roots, trunk, branches, arboriza-
tion, fructification, all that which constitutes the oak, with
the incalculable succession of oaks which can arise from it.
Here are two powers clearly manifest to me. First, I per-
ceive an occult power, incomprehensible, impossible to
grasp in its essence, which has infused in this acorn the
potential life of the oak, which has specified this life as the
life of an oak, and not the life of an elm, a poplar, a walnut,
or any other tree. This life which manifests itself under
the vegetable form and under the vegetable form of the oak
pertains nevertheless to universal life; because all that
lives, lives through this life. All that is, is; there are not
two verbs to be. Now this occult power which gives the
power of being and which specifies the life in the power of
being is called PrO'IJiilence. Secondly, in the acorn is an
obvious power, comprehensible, seizable in its forms, which,
manifesting itself as the necessary effect of the vital infusion
of which I have spoken and which has been accomplished,
one knows not how, will irresistibly show why, that is to say,
it will result in an oak, every time that the acorn finds itself
in a condition suitable for this. This power which appears
always as the consequence of a principle or the result of a
cause is called Destiny. There is this notable difference
between Destiny and Providence: that Destiny has need
One can see what I have written upon this unique verb, in my Grammaire
de Ia langue nebraique, ch. vii., i.

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 Introductory Dissertation xlvii

of a condition as we have just seen, in order to exist; whereas

Providence has no necessity for being. To exist is therefore
the verb of Destiny; but Providence alone, is.
However, the moment that I examine this acorn I have
the sensation of a third power which is not in the acorn and
which can dispose of it; this power, which belongs to the
essence of Providence because it is, depends also upon the
forms of Destiny because it exists. I perceive this power
free, since it is in me and nothing prevents me from de-
veloping it according to the extent of my strength. I hold
the acorn, I can eat it and assimilate it thus with my sub-
stance; I can give it to an animal that will eat it; I can de-
stroy it by crushing it beneath my feet; I can sow it and
make it produce an oak. I crush it beneath my feet; the
acorn is destroyed. Is its Destiny annihilated? No, it is
changed; a new Destiny, which is my work, commences for
it. The debris of the acorn decomposes according to fatal,
fixed, and irresistible laws; the elements which were united
in order to enter into its composition are dissolved, each
returns to its place, and the life, for which they served as
covering, unalterable in its essence, carried anew by its
appropriate vehicle in the nourishing channels of the oak,
will fertilize another acorn and once more offers itself to the
chances of Destiny. The power which can thus take pos-
session of the principles given by Providence and act effec-
tively upon the consequences of Destiny is called Will of Man.
This Will can act in the same manner upon all things,
physically as well as metaphysically, subject to the sphere of
activity; for nature is everywhere alike. Not only can it
interrupt and change Destiny, but, by modifying all the
consequences, it can also transform the providential prin-
ciples and that is without doubt its most brilliant advantage.
I will give an example of this modification and of this trans-
formation in following the comparison which I have made
in the vegetable kingdom as the easiest to grasp and to
generalize.

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lxviii Introductory Dissertation
Suppose that, instead of examining an acorn, it is an
apple that I examine, a sour, wild apple, which has as yet
received only the influences of Destiny; if I sow a seed of
this apple and if I cultivate with care the tree which springs
from it, the fruits which are brought forth will be perceptibly
improved, and by cultivation will be improved more and
more. Without this cultivation, the effect of my will,
nothing could improve it; for Destiny is a stationary power
which carries nothing to perfection; but once I possess
an apple-tree improved by cultivation, I can, by means of
grafting, make use of this apple-tree in improving many
others, modifying their destiny, and sour as they are, make
them sweet. I can do more; I can by conveying the prin-
ciple of another species into these seedlings thus transform
sterile shrubs into fruitful trees. Now that which operates
in one regime by means of cultivation operates in another
by means of civilization. The civil and religious institu-
tions accomplish here what the diverse cultivations and
graftings accomplish there.
It seems to me, after what I have said, that the respec-
tive actions of Providence, Destiny, and the Will of Man,
are very easy to distinguish in the vegetable kingdom; it is
much less so in the Kingdom of Man; but it does not escape
to such an extent that the mind's eye cannot grasp it readily,
when the mind can once admit its existence. The action
of Destiny and that of the Will move quite openly, that of
Providence is, I admit, more shrouded and more veiled;
it must be thus, so that it can never be comprehended. If
man could foretell what the designs of Providence are, he
might, in virtue of his free will, oppose their execution and
this must never be, at least directly.
However, there is a last question which one can address
to me upon the essence of the three universal powers, the
action of which I am about to try to explain for the first
time. I have said that it emanates from God Himself and
forms a ternary which the divine Unity envelops; but are

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 Introductory Dissertation xlix
we to conceive them as three distinct beings? No; but as
three distinct lives in the same being; three laws, three
modes of being, three natures comprised in one single nature.
Man, whose metaphysical constitution I have given, is an
abstract image of the universe; he lives equally the three
lives which his volitive unity envelops. In comparing the
universe to Man, we can conceive that Providence represents
there the intellectual sphere, Destiny the instinctive sphere,
and the Will of Man itself, the animistic sphere. These
spheres are not three distinct beings, although, to avoid
lengthy phrasing, and paraphrasing, I will personify them
often in describing their action; they are, as I have said,
three different lives, living the universal life and giving
particular life to a multitude of providential, instinctive,
and animistic beings, that is to say, which follow the law
of Providence, Destiny, or the Will; thus when I say further
on, that Providence, Destiny, or the Will act, that will
signify that the providential, prophetic, or volitive law un-
folds itself, becomes efficient cause, and produces such or
such effect, such or such event. This will signify also,
according to the occasion which will be easily perceived,
that any beings whatever, subject to one of these laws, serve
or provoke this movement; and to cite one example among
a thousand, when I say that Providence conducts Moses,
the phrase will signify that the providential law is the law
of this divine man and that he lived chiefly in the intellec-
tual life of which it is the regulator. When I say that
Destiny provokes the taking of Constantinople by the
Turks that will signify that the taking of this city is a fatal
consequence of anterior events and that the motive of the
Turks who take possession of it holds to the prophetic law
to which they are obedient. When I say finally that Luther
is the instrument of the Will of Man which provokes a schism
in Christianity, that will signify that Luther, drawn along
by very strong animistic passions, makes himself the inter-
preter of all the passions analogous to his own, and presents

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1 Introductory Dissertation
to them a focus wherein their rays, coming to meet and to
be reflected, cause a moral conflagration which tears the
Christian cult into shreds.
After having given these explanations and interpretations,
I do not believe that I have yet clearly explained all; but
I am, in short, obliged to rely upon the sagacity of the reader
which will supply what I may have omitted. Determined
to reveal what my studies and my meditations have taught
me regarding the origin of human society and the history
of Man, I have dared, in a few pages, to run through an inter-
val of twelve thousand years. I have found myself in the
presence of a mass of facts which I have tried to classify
and a host of beings whose character I have rapidly sketched.
My pen, consecrated to truth, has never flinched before it;
I have always told it with the strong conviction of telling
it; if my readers can recognize it, by the indelible sign with
which Providence has marked it, their approbation will be
the kindest recompense for my labours. If, after mature
reflections, they judge that I have been in error, I shall still
rely upon the equity of their judgment that they will at
least believe in my sincerity which makes it impossible for
me to want to deceive any one.

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 TABLE OF CHAPTERS
CONTAINED IN PART FIRST

PAG8

INTRODUCTORY DISSERTATION:
I.-Preamble. Purpose of this Work xi
II.-That the Knowledge of Man Is Indispensable to
the Legislator-Of what this Knowledge Consists xxi
III.-Intellectual, Metaphysical Constitution of Man . :xxvii
IV.-Man Is One of the Three Great Powers of the
Universe; What the Other Two Are xxx.viii

FIRST BOOK

CIIAPTD
I.-Division of Mankind Considered as Kingdom of
Man, in Four Principal Races-Digression on
the White Race-Object of this Work 5
II.-Love, Principle of Sociability and of Civilization
in Man 10

III.-Marriage, Basis of the Social Edifice: What its Prin-

ciple Is and What its Consequences Are . 16
IV.-ThatMan Is First Mute and that his First Language
Consists of Signs-origin of Speech . 2I
V.-Digression on the Four Ages of the World, and Re-
flections on this Subject-First Revolution in
the Social State, and First Manifestation of the
General Will . 29
li

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1ii Table of Chapters
CBAPTB& PAGB

VI.-5equel-Deplorable Lot of Woman at the Beginning

of Society-Second Revolution : War and its
Consequences-opposition of the Races . 37
VII.-First Social Organization-Third Revolution-
Servitude and its Consequences 45
VIII.-Fourth Revolution-Peace and Commerce . 50
IX.-Concerning Property and the Inequality of Con-
ditions : Their Origin 57
X.-situation of the Borean Race at the First Epoch of
Civilization . 61
XI.-Fifth Revolution-Development of the Human In-
telligence-origin of the Cult 65
XII.-Recapitulation 72

SECOND BOOK

I.-First Forms of Worship-Creation of Priesthood

and of Royalty 77
H .-sixth Revolution-Political and Religious Schism
-Origin of the Celts-Bedouins or Nomads
and Amazons 8o
III.-First Geographical Division of Europe . 86
IV.-First Division of Lands-Territorial Property 89
V.-Origin of Music and of Poetry-Invention of Other
Sciences 93
VI.-Deviation of the Cult: The Cause of it-supersti-
tion and Fanaticism: Their Origin . 98
VII.-seventh Revolution in the Social State-Establish-
ment of Theocracy 104
VIII.-Appearance of a Divine Messenger uo
IX.-Consequences of this Event-Divine Messenger is
Persecuted-He Separates himself from the Celts 113

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 Table of Chapters 1iii
CILU'TBR. PAGB

X.-Who Rama Was: His Religious and Political

Thoughts 118
XI.-Establishment of a Universal Empire, Theocratic
and Royal 123
XII.-Recapitulation 131

THIRD BOOK

I.-Digression upon the Celts-Origin of the Salians

and the Ripuarians-Their Emblems-5alic Law 135
!I.-Divine Unity Admitted into the Universal Empire
-Historic Details-Origin of the Zodiac . 140
III.-consequences of a Universal Empire-5tudy of the
Universe-Is it the Product of an Absolute Unity
or a Combined Duality? . 146
IV.-Eighth Revolution: Division of the Universal Prin-
ciples-Influence of Music-Questions Regard-
ing the Primary Cause-Is it Male or Female?
-Schism in the Empire for this Reason . 15 I
V.-Qrigin of the Phcenician Shepherds; their Opinions
on the Primal Cause-Their Conquests-New
Schisms, whence Result the Persians and Chinese
-Establishment of the Mysteries: Why 157
VI. -Reflections upon the Dismemberment of the Uni-
versal Empire 165
VII.-The Phrenicians Are Divided: their Cult Altered-
Foundation of the Assyrian Empire-Ninth Re-
volution in the Social State: First Political Con-
queror. 170
VIII,..-New Developments of the Intellectual Sphere-
Another Divine Envoy: Krishna-origin of
Magic among the Chaldeans, and of Theurgy in
Egypt-New Aspect Concerning the Universe-
Admission of a Trinity in the Divine Unity 175

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liv Table of Chapters
CIIAPT&Il

IX. -Appearance of the Political Conqueror Involving

the Despotism and the Downfall of Theocracy-
Sequel of these Events-Mission of Orpheus, of
Moses, and of Fo-Ri-Foundation of Troy 18.2
X.-Orpheus, Moses, and Fo-Hi: Who they Were-Their
Doctrine-Establishment of the Amphictyons
in Greece-Tenth Revolution-Origin of the
Confederations and of the National. Represen-
tation . 189
XI.-What Was the Aim of the Mission of Orpheus,
Moses, Fo-Hi-Moral and Political Movement of
the World, during the Space of about a Thou-
sand Years-Appearance of Pythagoras and of
Many Other Great Men 198
XII.-Recapitulation .2o8

TABLE OF CHAPTERS

CONTAINED IN PART SECOND

FOURTH BOOK

I.-Eleventh Revolution in the Social State-The

Cults Degenerate; the Intellectual Ideas Ma-
terialize-Admission of the Two Doctrines, One
Secret, the Other Public ~13

II.-8truggle between Asia and Europe-Taking of

Troy by the Greeks-Decline of the Assyrian
Empire-Elevation of Persia under Cyrus-
Expedition of Xerxes-Triumph of Greece-
Conquest of Alexander . 218
III.-Greece Loses her Political Existence-Reflections
on the Relative Duration of the Diverse Govern-
ments . 225
IV.-Beginning of Rome-Her Struggles with Carthage
-Her Triumphs . 229

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 Table of Chapters lv
CIIAPI'D PAGJ:

V.-Refiections on the Causes which Led to the Down-

fall of the Roman Republic-Conquest of Gaul
by Cresar-Civil Wars-Proscriptions-Victory
of Octavianus 233
VI.-Mission of Jesus: Its Object-Mission of Odin, and
of Apollonius of Tyana: To what End? 240
VII.-conquest of Odin: His Doctrine and that of Apollo-
nius-Foundation of Christianity . 249
VIII.-Twelfth Revolution in the Social State-constan-
tine Forced to Embrace Christianity and to
Abandon Rome-Invasion of the Goths: Down-
fall of the Roman Empire 255
IX.-Refiection upon these Events-situation of the
Priesthood and of Royalty-New Movements
of the Will of Man 261
X.-cursory View of the State of Asia-Mission of
Mohammed and its Results-Thirteenth Revo-
lution . 1266
XI.-Reign of Charlemagne-Fourteenth Revolution-
The Crusades-Taking of Jerusalem by the
Christians; Taking of Constantinople by the
Mussulmans-Causes and Results of these Events 273
XII.-Recapitulation

FIFTH BOOK

I.-Digression upon the Kingdom of Man; its Intimate

Nature, its Composition, the Solidarity of its
Members and Means of Elaboration Contained
within it 1287
!I.-Utility of Feudalism and of Christianity-Modi-
fication of these two Regimes by Each Other-
Chivalry and its Consequences-Reformation
of the Social State in Europe . 1292

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CBAPI'&R PAGB

III.-Historical and Political View of the Principal

Nations of Europe-Spain 301
IV.-France-England-Italy . 307
V.-What Rome Was and What She Should Have
Been-Respective Position of the Popes and the
Emperors: Their Divisions 315
VI.-8truggle in France against England-Danger of
France Abandoned by Destiny-Movement of
Providence in its Favour-Joan of Arc 325
VII.-Causes of a Double Movement of the Will in the
Political System and in the Cult-Fifteenth Re-
volution-Discovery of the New World . 336
VIII.-What the Situation of the Occidental Hemisphere
Was at the Epoch of its Discovery-Revolutions
which it Had Experienced-Island of Atlantis . 341
IX.-Conquest of the Spaniards, and their Crimes in
America-settlements of the Portuguese in
Asia-General Results . 350
X.-schism of Luther-How Charles V. Was Able
to Arrest it . 359
XI.-Consequences of the Schism of Luther--Anabap-
tists-Legislation of Calvin at Geneva 365
XII.-Recapitulation 373

SIXTH BOOK

I.-Invention of Gunpowder, and the Art of Printing

-Causes and Effects of these Two Inventions-
Fine Arts-Useful Arts-Commodities of Life . 377
H.-Institution of the Jesuits: For what End?-Who
Ignatius Loyola Was-New Reflections upon the
Conduct of Charles VII.; upon that of Francis I.;
Philip II., King of Spain; Henry IV., King of
France-Assassination of this Monarch . 383

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PAGII

!H.-Movement of the European Will towards America

-Means of this Movement-Reign of James I.,
in England-Misfortunes of his Son Charles I.-
Cromwell: Who he Was-Foundation of the Sect
of Quakers by Fox and Penn-Transplanting of
this Sect to America . 390
IV.-5ettlement of the Jesuits in Paraguay-Glance at
Asia-Revolution in China and Japan-Ancient
History of Japan-Mission of Sin-mou: His Doc-
trine, and Form of Government-Mission of
Soctotais, Follower of Fo-Hi-Doctrine of the
Disciples of Kong-Tree-Mistakes Committed
by the Christian Missionaries . 396
V.-continuation of Outlook upon Asia-Power of the
Ottomans-Condition of their Empire and its
Decline-Rapid Glance at Persia and India 407
VI.-Reflections upon Russia and Sweden-Peter I.-
Charles XII.-contest between these Two
Monarchs-Victory Rests with Russia: Why? . 415
VII.-Elevation of Prussia under Frederick H.-Mis-
takes Committed by this Prince-Dismember-
ment of Poland-Glance at Poland, Denmark,
and Other Powers of Europe-Some Reflections
on the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu 423
VIII.-condition of France under Louis XIV.-Her Gran-
deur-Her Decline Caused by Madame de
Maintenon-Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
-Reflections Regarding this- Minority of
Louis XV.-Birth of Philosophism-The Will
Triumphs over Destiny-Voltaire-Rousseau-
Influence of these Two Men . . 430
IX.-Consequences of the Revolution in England-
Movement of the Will in America-Its Propa-
gation in France . 437

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CBAPTD PAGB

X.-Suppression of the Jesuits-Condition of the Minds

at the Time of the French Revolution-Eleva-
tion of Bonaparte . . 442
XI.-Napoleon Bonaparte: Who he Was-His Downfall
-Restoration of the Bourbon Family 451
XII.-Recapitulation . 455

SEVENTH BOOK

I.-Political Infiuence of the Three Great Powers of the

Universe upon Men and Governments 459
!I.-Principle of the Republican Government-The
Sovereignty of the People: Whence it Comes
-How the Republics are Founded-Position
of Religion in the Modern Republics 463
III.-Will of Man put above Providence in the Repub-
lics-Measures which it Takes to Dominate
Destiny-Origin of Domestic Slavery-Differ-
ence of this Slavery from that of Feudal Servi-
tude and Military Captivity-Reflections upon
this . 470
IV.-Other Measures which the Will Takes to Dominate
over Destiny in Republics: How they Fail-
Amalgamation Attempted between the Will and
Destiny in Modern Republics-Origin of Em-
porocracy: What its Mainspring Is . 477
V.-Principle of Monarchical Government-Destiny
Dominates the Will there-This Government Is
Natural to Man, and especially to Man of Yellow
Race-White Race Inclined toward Republic:
Why?-Origin of Imperial and Feudal Govern-
ment-Principle of Theocratic Government-
Movement of the Three Powers 486

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 Table of Chapters 1ix
CBAPTBR PAGS

VI.-The Causes which Are Opposed to the Establish-

ment of Pure Despotism and Democracy-Ter-
ror Fails the Despot, as Slavery the Demagogue
-origin of Constitutional Monarchy-Distinc-
tion between what Is Legitimate and what Is
Legal . 493
VII.-Important Distinction between the Essence of
Religion and its Forms-The Forms which Con-
stitute the Cults Can Belong to Destiny as to
the Will: The Essence Is always Providential,
and Leads to Theocracy-causes of Religious
Quarrels and Schisms 500
VIII.-New Considerations of the Social State-Its Uni-
versal Type-How the Three Powers Determine
the Three Forms of Government-These Three
United Forms Give Birth to Theocracy-Differ-
ence between Emporocracy and Constitutional
Monarchy 507
IX.-What the Political Mainspring of the Constitu-
tional Monarchy Should Be-Dangers of this
Monarchy Deprived of Mainspring-New Con-
siderations upon the Three Forms of Govern-
ment, and upon their Diverse Kinds 516
X.-Real Condition of Things in Europe-combat
between Men of Will and those of Destiny:
Liberals and Royalists-What the Mixed Men
Called Ministerials Are-Danger in which Social
Order is Found-Means of Evading this Danger. 524
XI.-Appeal of Providence in the Mixed Governments,
to Render them Unitary 532
XII.-General Recapitulation 534

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
of the
Origin of the Social State of Man
and of the
Destiny of the Adamic Race

Part First

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oigiized by Goog le
FIRST BOOK

Dig1tizod by Goog [e
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 CHAPTER I

DIVISION OF 'MANKIND CONSIDERED AS KINGDOM OF MAN IN

FOUR PRINCIPAL RACES-DIGRESSION ON THE
WHITE RACE-OBJECT OF THIS WORK

IN that
this work I shall treat not of the origin of Man, but of
of human society. History is occupied solely with
the second of these origins. Cosmogony reveals the first.
History takes Man from the moment of his appearance on
earth, and, without concerning itself with his ontological
principle, seeks to find the principle of sociability which
inclines him to approach his fellow-creatures and to come
out of the state of isolation and ignorance where nature
seems to have confined him in scarcely distinguishing him,
so far as form is concerned, from several other animals. I
shall tell what the divine principle is which Providence
has implanted in his breast; I shall show by what
necessary circumstances, dependent upon Destiny, this
principle of perfectibility finds itself reactionne j how it
is developed and what admirable succour it receives
from itself when man, whom it enlightens, can make use
of his will to mitigate more and more by the cultivation
of his mind whatever is rigorous and savage in his des-
tiny, in order to carry his civilization and welfare
to the highest degree of perfection of which they are
capable.
I shall transport myself for this purpose to an epoch
5

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6 Hermeneutic Interpretation
sufficiently remote from this in which we are living, and,
fortifying my mental vision, which a long prejudice may have
weakened, I shall fix across the obscurity of centuries the
moment when the White Race, of which we are a part, came
to appear upon the scene of the world. At this epoch of
which I shall seek later to determine the date, the White
Race was still weak, savage, without laws, without arts,
without cultivation of any sort, destitute of memories, and
too devoid of understanding even to conceive a hope. It
inhabited the environs of the Boreal pole where it had its
origin. The Black Race, more ancient than the White,
was dominant upon the earth and held the sceptre of science
and of power; it possessed all of Mrica and the greater part
of Asia, where it had enslaved and restrained the Yellow
Race. Some remnants of the Red Race had languished
obscurely upon the summits of the highest mountains of
America and had survived the horrible catastrophe which
had just struck them; these weak remnants were un-
known; the Red Race to whom they had belonged had
not long since possessed the Occidental hemisphere of
the globe; the Yellow Race, the Oriental; the Black Race
then sovereign, spread to the south on the equatorial line,
and, as I have just said, the White Race which was only
then springing up, wandered about the environs of the
Boreal pole.
These four principal races and the numberless varieties
which result from their mixture compose the Kingdom of
Man. They are, properly speaking, what the species are
in the other kingdoms. One can understand nations and
diverse people as particular species in these races. These
four races clashed and fought together, turn by turn, dis-
tinguished and confused. Many times they disputed among
themselves the sceptre of the world; they wrested or shared
1 If one has read the Introductory Dissertation at the head of this work,

which is necessary to give understanding, one knows that I mean by the

Kintdom of Man the totality of men, which is called ordinarily Mankind.

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 Boreal Pole Nursery of Mankind 7
it over and over again. My intention is not to enter into
these vicissitudes anterior to the actual order of things, the
infinite details of which would overpower me with a useless
burden and would not lead me to the end that I purpose to
attain. I shall devote myself only to the White Race to
which we belong and to outlining the history, from the epoch
of its last appearance at the environs of the Boreal pole:
it is from there that they descended in swarms at diverse
times to make incursions as much upon other races when they
were still dominant as upon themselves when they had
seized the dominion.
The vague memory of this origin, surviving the torrent
of centuries, has caused the Boreal pole to be named the
nursery of Mankind. It has given birth to the name of
Hyperboreans and to all the allegorical fables which have
been recited concerning them; it has furnished, in short,
numerous traditions which have led Olaus Rudbeck to
place in Scandinavia the Atlantis of Plato and which author-
ized Bailly to discern upon the rocks, deserted and whitened
by the hoarfrost of Spitzbergen, the cradle of all sciences,
all arts, and all mythologies of the world. 1
It is assuredly very difficult to say at what epoch the
White Race, or the Hyperboreans, began to be united by any
form of civilization, and it is still less easy to say at what
more remote epoch they began to exist. Moses, who speaks
of them in the sixth chapter of Ber(Uhith, 2 under the name
of Ghiboreans, whose names have been so celebrated in the
depths of time, traces their origin to the first ages of the
world. One finds a hundred times the name of Hyper-
boreans in the writings of the ancients, and never any posi-
tive light upon them. According to Diodorus of Sicily their

One can see in the writings of these two authors the numerous proofs
which they bring to the support of their assertions. These proofs, insufficient
in their hypotheses, become irresistible when it is merely a question of fixing
the first abode of the White Race and the place of their origin.
This is the first book of the Sepher commonly called Genesis.

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8 Hermeneutic Interpretation
country was the nearest to the moon; which can be under-
stood from the elevation of the pole which they inhabited
.tEschylus, in his Prometheus, placed them upon the Rhi-
prean mountains. A certain Aristeas of Proconesus, who,
it is said, had made a poem upon these people, and who
claimed to have visited them, affirmed that they occupied
the country north-east of upper Asia which we call today
Siberia. Hecate .of Abdera, in a work published in the
time of Alexander, placed them still further back, and
lodged them among the white bears of Nova Zembla on
an island called Elixofa. The pure truth is, as avowed
by Pindar more than :five centuries before our era, that
no one knew in which region was situated the country of
this people. Herodotus himself, so curious to collect all
antique traditions, had in vain interrogated the Scythians
about them and had been unable to discover anything
certain.
All these contradictions, all these uncertainties, arose
from confusing a single people with a race of men from which
issued a host of peoples. At that time, they made the same
mistake which we today should make if, confusing the
Black Race with one of the nations which draws its origin
from it, we wished absolutely to circumscribe the country
of the entire race in the country occupied by this single
nation. The Black Race certainly originated in the vicinity
of the equatorial line and has spread from there over the
African continent, whence it afterward extended its empire
over the entire earth and over the White Race, before the
latter had the strength to dispute this domination. It is
possible that at such a very remote epoch the Black Race
may have been called Sudeenne or Sutheenne as the White
Race is called Borean, Ghiborean, or Hyperborean, and
that from these may have come the horror which is generally
attached to the name of Sutheen among the nations of white
origin. We know that these nations have always placed
at the South the abode of the infernal spirit, called for

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 CHAPTER II

LOVE, PRINCIPLE OF SOCIABIUTY AND OF CIVIUZATION

OF MAN

LETnecessary
us resume now the thread of my ideas, which this
digression has slightly interrupted, and see
what were the beginnings of civilization in the Borean Race
concerning which I shall occupy myself exclusively.
It is presumable that, at the epoch in which this race
appeared upon the earth under forms very similar to those
of many species of animals, it could, notwithstanding the
absolute difference of origin and the contrary tendency of
its destinies, remain mingled with them for some time.
This resulted from the dulness of its faculties, even the
instinctive ones; the two superior spheres of the soul and
mind, being in no wise developed in Man, he lived therefore
only by sensation and, always compelled by it, he had
instinct only for perception without attaining even atten-
tion. Individualization was his only means; attraction
and fear were his only motives and, in their absence, indolence
became his habitual state.
But Man had not been destined to live alone and isolated
upon earth; he possessed a principle of sociability and of
perfectibility which could not always remain stationary;
now the means by which this principle was to be drawn from
The reader should turn back to the Introductory Dissertation, if he does
not recall what I said about the metaphysical constitution of Man.
10

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 Four Principal Races 9

this reason Suth or Soth by the Egyptians, Sath by the

Phrenicians, and SaJhan or Satan by the Arabs and the
Hebrews. 1
1 This name has served as a root for that of Saturn with the Etruscans

and of Sathur, Suthur, or Surthur with the Scandinavians, terrible or beneficent

divinity according to the manner of considering it. It is from the Celtic-
Saxon SutiJ that the English South, the Belgian Suytl, the German and French
Sutl is derived, designating the part of the terrestrial globe opposite the Boreal
pole. It is to be observed that the word, which generally is rendered by that
of Midi, has no etymological relation to it. It designates properly all that
which is contrary to elevation, all that which is low, all that which serves as
ibasis or seat. The word sedimem is derived from the Latin sedere, which
comes itself from the Celtic-Saxon siaen, in German silaera, to sit down.

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 Man Not Destined to Live Alone n
its lethargy had been placed by the high wisdom of its
Author in the companion of man, in woman, whose organism
different" in very important points, physical as well as meta-
physical, gave her inverse emotions. Such had been the
Divine Decree, even from the origin of things, that this
universal being, destined to put harmony into the elements
and to dominate the three kingdoms of Nature, would
receive his first impulses from woman and would owe to
love his first developments. Love, the origin of all beings,
was to be the fecund source of his civilization, and was to
produce thus so many opposite effects, so much happiness,
so many troubles, and such a great mixture of knowledge
and of blindness, of virtues and of vices.
Love, principle of life and of fecundity, had therefore
been destined to be the conservator and legislator of the
world. Profound truth, which the ancient sages had known
and which they had even announced clearly in their cosmo-
gonies, attributing to it the disentangling of chaos. Isis
and Ceres, so often called legislators, were only the deified
type of feminine nature, considered as the living focus
whence this love was reflected.
If Man had been only pure animal, always forced in the
same way, and his companion, like the females of other ani-
mals, had felt in the same manner the same necessities as
he; if they had both been subject to the regular crises of the
same desires, equally felt, equally shared; if, in short, to
express it in proper terms, they had had periodical seasons
of amorous ardour or heat and the like, never would man
have been civilized. But it was far from being thus. The
same sensations, although proceeding from the same causes,
did not produce the same effects in the two sexes. This is
worthy of the highest attention, and I beg the reader to
concentrate his mental view for a moment upon this almost
1 The name Isis comes from the word !shah, which signifies tDOman, lady.

The name Ceres, from the same root as the word her2, that is to say the
St11Jet'eign. This word lser2 forms the name of Juno in Greek, uP'I orBpc~.

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12 Hermeneutic Interpretation
imperceptible point of the human constitution. Here is
the germ of all civilization, the seminal point whence all
must come to light, the powerful motive from which all is
to receive movement in social order.
To enjoy before possessing is the instinct of man; to
possess before enjoying is the instinct of woman. Let us
explain this; but let us set aside for a moment the passions
which the Social State has brought forth and the sentiments
which the imagination has excited. Let us restrict our-
selves to instinct alone and see how it acts under the sole
influence of its needs; let us consider the Man of Nature and
not of society.
At the moment when an agreeable sensation comes to
disturb the instinct of this man, what does he feel? This:
he will attach to the attraction proceeding necessarily from
the sensation the actual need of enjoying his object and
that more distant one of possessing it; that is to say, suppos-
ing it be some sort of fruit which has struck his view and
excited his appetite, the instinctive man will feel the need
of eating it before making sure of its possession and this
fact will carry him quickly forward at any risk; so that if an
intervention of fear, an unforeseen noise, the sight of an
adversary should strike him, his first idea would be to brave
the cause instead of fleeing from it. Whereas if the purely
instbctive woman finds herself placed in a parallel situation,
she will feel precisely the contrary. She will attach to the
attraction proceeding from an agreeable sensation the actual
need of possessing the object and that more distant one of
enjoying it in all security; at the sight of some fruit which
she desires to eat, her first thought will be possession, and
this will keep her in suspense; so that if a sensation of fear
seizes her, her first idea will be to flee from the cause instead
of braving it.
This contrary disposition in the moral constitution of
the two sexes established between them from the beginning
a striking difference which prevented their passions from

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 Moral Constitution of the Sexes 13
manifesting themselves under the same forms, brought forth
from the same sensation another thought, and impressed
upon them in consequence, a movement wholly opposed.
To enjoy before possessing and to fight before fleeing con-
stituted then the instinct of man; whereas to possess before
enjoying and to flee before fighting constituted that of
woman.
Now if one cares to examine for a moment the principal
consequences which proceeded from this notable difference
when it was decided between the two sexes, that is to say,
when a woman was found happily enough organized to but
push perception as far as attention, one will see that it was
inevitable that she should not show a real and unexpected
resistance to the man, led to her by sexual attraction; for,
much more occupied with the idea of possessing than with
that of enjoying and not at all forced by the appetite which
mastered the man, she could instinctively examine what real
advantage the sensation which he proposed would procure
for her. Since there was no pleasure attached to this sensa-
tion for her and no advantage to be gained, overcome with
fear, she decided suddenly to flee.
The nature of man is not, as I have said, to recoil before
an obstacle. His first impulse is, on the contrary, to brave
and conquer it. At the sight of the woman who flees from
him, he does not therefore remain fixed, he does not turn
his back, but urged by the attraction which subjugates
him he precipitates himself upon her tracks. Often, swifter
than he, she escapes him; sometimes he seizes her, but what-
ever may be the issue, the attention of the man is awakened.
The very combat which takes place makes him feel that his
aim is not accomplished whether the result be happy or
unhappy. Then he reflects, but the woman has reflected
before him. She has seen that it is not good for her to let
herself be conquered, and he has felt that it would have
been better for him if she had submitted. Why then did
she flee? His reflection, still weak, does not permit him to

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14 Hermeneutic Interpretation
understand that one may resist an inclination, and that
there should above all be an inclination ot!ler than his.
But the fact exists and is renewed. The man reflects again.
He succeeds by the inward repetition of his own idea in
retaining it and, memory forming, his mind takes an enor-
mous step. He finds that he has several needs and for the
first time perhaps he counts as many as three, and distin-
guishes them. Thus enumeration and individualization
act in the sphere of his will.
If the woman towards whom an irresistible inclination
drew him has fled, doubtless another inclination has forced
her flight; what could be this inclination? Hunger perhaps!
This terrible need which shows itself in the instinctive part
of his being, in the absence of the sensation itself, produces
an important and sudden revolution; for the first time the
animistic sphere is disturbed and pity manifests itself.
This gentle passion, the first by which the soul may be
affected, is the true character of humanity. It is that which
makes man a being veritably sociable. The philosophers,
who have believed that this passion could be first awakened
or produced by the aspect of a being suffering, are mistaken.
The aspect of pain awakens fear, and fear, terror. This
transformation of sensation into sentiment is instantaneous.
There is in pity the impression of an anterior idea which is
transformed into sentiment without the aid of sensation.
Pity is likewise more profoundly moral than terror and
pertains more intimately to the nature of Man.
But, as soon as Man has begun to feel pity, he is not far
from understanding love. He reflects already upon the
means which he can take to prevent the woman fleeing at
his approach, and, although he is mistaken absolutely con-
cerning the motives of this flight, he attains none the less
the aim of his desires. He seizes the moment when he has
a double supply of fruit and game or an abundance of fish,
and when he finds the object of his desires, he offers her his
gifts. At this sight the woman is touched, not in the way

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 Conjugal Tie is Woven 15
in which her lover believes her to be, by the satisfaction of
an actual need, but by the innate inclination which urges
her to possess. She feels immediately all the advantages
she can gain from this occurrence for the future, and, as
she attributes it with reason, to a certain charm which she
inspires, she instinctiwly experiences an agreeable sensa-
tion which disturbs the animistic spirit within her and
vanity is awakened.
From the moment that the woman has received the gifts
from the man and has extended the hand to him, the conjugal
tie is woven and society has commenced.

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 CHAPTER III

MARRIAGE, BASIS OF THE SOCIAL EDIFICE; WHAT ITS PRINCIPLE

IS, AND WHAT ITS CONSEQUENCES ARE

H OWEVER little one may be instructed in the knowledge

of ancient traditions, one should have no trouble in
recognizing the two pictures which I have drawn, because
they are in reality true, although the forms may vary in a
thousand ways at diverse epochs and in diverse places.
Greek mythology, so brilliant and so rich, offers a great
number of examples of these amorous struggles between the
gods or the satyrs pursuing nymphs who fled from them.
Sometimes it is Apollo who runs upon the track of Daphne,
Jupiter who presses on the steps of Io, Pan who seeks to
seize Syrinx or Penelope. In the most ancient nuptial
ceremonies, one always sees the husband making gifts to
the wife and these constitute a dowry for her. This dowry,
which the man gave formerly and which he still gives among
some peoples, has changed place among us and among the
greater part of modern nations, and must be offered prin-
cipally by the woman, on account of reasons which I will
show later. This change does not prevent, however, the
ancient usage from still surviving in the wedding gifts,
which one calls in French corbeille de mariage, or marriage-
basket, as if by this word basket one wished to recall that
this present first consisted of fruits or some sort of food.
However this event to which I have just attributed the
16

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 Marriage, the Edifice of Society 17
beginning of human society was repeated simultaneously
or at very near epochs, in different places; so that centres
of civilization were established in great number throughout
the same country. These were the germs which Providence
had sown in the heart of the Borean Race and which were
to develop there under the influence of Destiny and the
particular Will of Man.
The sentiments which had united the two sexes, not at
all by the effect of a blind appetite but by that of a deliberate
act, were not the same, as I have said, but their difference,
ignored by the young couple, disappeared in the identity
of the aim. The pity which the man had felt led him to
think that his companion had chosen him as a tutelar support,
and the woman, touched by vanity, saw her work in the
welfare of her spouse. On the one side pride was born and
on the other compassion. Thus the sentiments were
opposed and enchained in the two sexes.
From the moment that instinct alone had no longer
prepared the nuptial couch and an animistic sentiment,
nobler and more elevated, had presided over the mysteries
of Hymen, a sort of pact had been tacitly established be-
tween the young couple, from which it resulted that the
stronger was pledged to protect the weaker and the weaker
to remain attached to the stronger. This pact, in augment-
ing the welfare of the man, making him understand pleasure
of which he was ignorant, increased also his labours. It was
necessary that he should provide not alone for his own
nourishment, but for that of his spouse, when her pregnancy
had reached such an advanced stage that it did not permit
her following him any more, and afterward for that of their
children. Instinctive reason, another name for which is
common sense or good sense, was not long in making him
understand that the ordinary means, sufficient up to that
time, were adequate no longer and that it was necessary to
devise others. This reason reacting upon instinct caused
ruse to be born. He set traps for the game on which he
2

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18 Hermeneutic Interpretation
lived. He invented the arrow and the boar-spear of the
hunter; he discovered the art of catching more fish by means
of hook and net. Necessity and practice doubled his forces
and his skill. His wife, endowed with more finesse, added
to a ruse greater than his, an observation more sure and a
presentiment more prompt. She learned soon to set up
rushes forming a kind of basket which, after having served
as a cradle for her children, became the first article of furni-
ture in her household. Spinning roughly the hair of many
kinds of an;mals, she easily made cords, which were used
to stretch the bow and to fashion nets. These cords, inter-
laced in a certain manner, were soon changed under her
fingers into coarse stuffs, and this invention appeared to her
no doubt as admirable as the usage seemed to her conveni-
ent, as well for her children as for herself and her husband.
These stuffs, which a rigid climate often rendered necessary,
were supplanted by skins of beasts with which it was not
always easy to provide themselves.
It is useless, I think, to pursue further these details,
which any one can continue at his pleasure and embellish
with the colours of his imagination. When the principles
are fixed, the consequences become easy. Only, I beg the
reader to guard against falling here into an error whose
imputation would be unfortunate for me. Although I
obviously give marriage as the principle of the Social State,
that is to say; the free and mutual consent of man and woman
being united by a tacit pact to endure and share together
the sorrows and joys of life, and although I make the exist-
ence of this bond spring from opposed sensations of the two
sexes and the development of their instinctive faculties, I
must of course, as I think I have been careful to make clear,
regard the formation of this tie as fortuitous.
Those animals which nature has never joined since the
origin of the species never do join; it is because man is not
an animal and above all because he is susceptible of im-
provement, that he can pass from one estate to another and

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 Providence, Destiny and Human Will 19

become from generation to generation more and more in-

stinctive, animistic, or intellectual. Marriage, upon which
rests the whole edifice of society, is the very work of Pro-
vidence, which has determined it in principle. When it
passes into action, it is a divine law which is accomplished
by means determined upon in advance in order to attain
an aim irresistibly fixed.
Still if one should ask me why this pact, being an indis-
pensable necessity to the civilization of the Kingdom of
Man, so eminently necessary itself, has not been arranged
in advance, as is noticed in some species of animals, I shall
answer that it is because Providence and Destiny have a
contrary mode of operation appropriate to their opposed
essence. That which Destiny makes, it makes complete
at once, constrained in all its parts, and leaves it such as it
has made it, without ever urging it further forward with its
own movement; whereas Prov:dence, producing nothing
except in principle, gives to all things which emanate from
it a progressive impulse, which, carrying them unceasingly
with potentiality in action, brings them by degrees to the
perfection of which they are susceptible. If Man belongs
to Destiny, he would be what short-sighted philosophers
have attributed him to be: without progression in his course
and consequently without future. But, as the work of
Providence, he advances freely in the route which is traced
for him, perfecting himself in proportion as he advances, and
tends thus to immortality.
This is what one must certainly believe, if one wishes
to penetrate into the essence of things and to comprehend
the word of that profound enigma of the universe which
the ancients symbolized by the figure of the Sphinx. Man
is the property of Providence which, considered as the living
Law, as expression of the Divine Will, determines his poten-
tial existence; but as this being must draw all the elements
of its actual existence from the domain of Destiny, whose
productions he is entrusted with dominating and regulating,

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20 Hermeneutic Interpretation
he must do it by the display of his efficient will, absolutely
free in its essence. Upon the usage of this will depends his
ulterior fate. Whereas Providence calls and directs him
by its inspirations, Destiny resists and arrests him by its
needs. His passions which belong to him incline him with
force to one side or the other, and, according to the deter-
minations which they arouse, deliver his future to one of
these two powers; for he cannot be its absolute property
except as he avails himself of the elementary life, transient
and limited.
His social state depends therefore, as I have shown, upon
the unfolding of his faculties which lead to marriage, and
the social state, once constituted, gives birth to property
from which results political right. But, since the social
condition finds itself the work of three distinct powers-
Providence, which gives the principle; Destiny, which fur-
nishes the elements; and the human Will, which finds the
means-it is evident that the political right which emanates
from it must receive equally the influence of the three powers,
and, according as the one or the other dominates it, sepa-
rately or jointly, takes forms analogous to their action. These
forms, which after all are confined in these three principles,
can nevertheless vary and become modified in many ways
by their fusions and their oppositions, and can bring about
almost endless consequences. Later in this work I shall
point out diverse forms, simple or mixed, after having clearly
established the order, nature, and action of the three powers
which create them. I shall show in the following chapter
the origin of one of the most glorious results and the most
brilliant phenomena which are attached to the formation
of human society : speech.

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 CHAPTER IV

THAT MAN IS FIRST MUTE AND THAT IDS FIRST LANGUAGE

CONSISTS OF SIGNS--oF SPEECH-TRANSFORMATION OF
MUTE LANGUAGE INTO ARTICULATE LANGUAGE AND THE
SEQUEL OF THIS TRANSFORMATION.

M AN endowed in principle with all the strength, all the

faculties, all the means with which he can be vested
in time, does not actually possess any of these things when
he is born. He is weak and feeble and destitute of every-
thing. The individual gives us in this respect a striking
example of what the kingdom is in its origin. Some who,
in order to extricate themselves from perplexities upon very
difficult points, state that man arrives on earth as robust
of body as enlightened of mind, say a thing which experience
denies and which reason condemns. Others who, accepting
this admirable being such as nature gives him, attribute to
the conformation of his organs and to his physical sensa-
tions alone, so many sublime conceptions which are foreign
there, fall into the most absurd contradictions and re-
veal their ignorance. And, finally, those who believe
themselves obliged, in order to explain the least phe-
nomenon, to call God Himself upon the scene to make
Him the Preceptor of a being so often rebellious in his
lessons, announce plainly that they find it easier to cut
the Gordian knot than to untie it. They act as the
authors of ancient tragedies, who, not knowing what to do
21

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22 Hermeneutic Interpretation
with their actors, exposed them for this reason to a stroke
of lightning.
Man is a divine germ which is developed by the reaction
of his senses. All is innate in him, all; that which he re-
ceives from the exterior is only the occasion of his ideas;
not his ideas themselves. He is a plant, as I have already
said, which bears thoughts as a rose-bush bears roses, or an
apple-tree, apples. Each has need of reaction. But has
the water or air from which the rose-bush or the apple-tree
draws its nutriment any relation with the intimate essence
of the rose or the apple? Not any. They are indifferent
and can cause nettles or berries of deadly nightshade to
grow with equal ease, if the germ is offered to their action in
a suitable situation. So then although man has received
at his beginning a spark of the Divine Word, he does not
bring with him a language wholly formed. He indeed
contains within him the principle of the power of speech in
potentiality but not in action. In order to speak it is neces-
sary that he should have felt the need of speaking, that he
should have wished it strongly, for it is one of the most
difficult operations of his understanding. As long as he
lives isolated and purely instinctive he does not speak, he
does not even feel the necessity of speech, he would be in-
capable of making any effort of the will to attain it; plunged
in absolute dumbness he delights therein; whatever disturbs
his hearing is noise; he cannot distinguish sounds as sounds
but as shocks, and these shocks, analogous to all his other
sensations, excite in him only attraction or fear according
as they awaken the idea of pleasure or pain. But from the
moment that he enters the social state, by the means of the
event which I have related, a thousand circumstances which
are accumulated about him make some sort of language
necessary for him; he needs a means of communication be-
tween his ideas and those of his companion. He wishes to
make her understand his desires and above all his hopes, for
since he has pride he has also hopes, and his companion is

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 Spark of the Divine Word 23
still more eager to communicate her desires to him, as her
vanity more active and more circumscribed suggests them
to her more often and in greater number.
Scarcely is this will determined in them than means of
satisfying it are presented. These means are such that they
employ them without seeking them and as if they had al-
ways had them. They do not suspect in employing them
that they are establishing the foundations of a most ad-
mirable edifice. These means are signs which they effect by
a movement of instinctive intention and these they under-
stand in the same way. This is extremely remarkable, that
signs have no need of an anterior agreement to be under-
stood; at least those that are radical, as, for exa-nple, signs
which express approval or refusal, affirmation or negation,
invitation to approach or order to withdraw, menace or
accord, etc. I invite the reader to reflect a moment on this
point, for it is here that he will find the origin of speech so
long and vainly sought. Let us transport ourselves among
some people, whether they be civilized or savage, inhabiting
the North or the South of the earth, the Old or the New
World; let us not listen to the diverse words which they use
to express the idea of affirmation or of negation, yes or no, but
let us consider the signs which accompany these words; we
will see that they are everywhere the same. It is the incli-
nation of the head in a perpendicular line which expresses
affirmation and its double rotation on a horizontal line
which indicates negation. If we see the arm extended and
the open hand turned toward the breast, that invites us to
approach. If we see, on the contrary, the arm at first
folded, unfolded with violence in extending the hand, this
orders us to leave. If the arms of the man are folded, the
fists closed, he menaces. If he lets them fall, gently opening
the two hands, he accedes. Let us take with us a person
mute from birth; the more savage and near to nature people
are the better they will understand him and the better they
will be understood by him, and this for the simple reason

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24 Hermeneutic Interpretation
that they will both be nearer to the primitive language of
Mankind.
Let us not fear to announce this important truth: all
the languages which men speak and which they have spoken
on the face of the earth, and the incalculable mass of words
which enter or have entered into the composition of these
languages, have been derived from a very small quantity
of radical signs. In searching some years ago to restore
the Hebrew tongue in its constitutive principles, finding in
my hands a language whose astonishing simplicity rendered
analysis very easy, I saw the truth which I announce, and
I have proved it as far as it has been possible for me, in
showing, first, that the written characters or letters in the
origin of this tongue had been only the very signs which
had been indicated by a sort of hieroglyphic, and afterwards
that these characters, drawing near to one another in groups
of two or three, had formed monosyllabic roots and these
roots, joining a new character or uniting together themselves,
a mass of words.
This is not the time to enter into grammatical details
which would be out of place here. I must offer only prin-
ciples. The reader, curious concerning these sorts of re-
searches, can consult, if he judges it apropos, the grammar
and vocabulary which I have given to the Hebrew tongue.
The first language known to man therefore was a mute
language. One cannot conceive of another without admit-
ting an infusion of the Divine Speech in him, which, supposing
a like infusion of all other sciences, is proved false by the
fact. The philosophers who have recourse to an earlier
convention for each term of the tongue fall into a shocking
contradiction. Providence, I have frequently said, gives
only the principles of all things; it is for man to develop
them.
But the moment when this mute language was estab-
lished between the young pair, the moment when a sign,
issued as an expression of a thought from the heart of the

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 The First Language
one 'into that of the other, was comprehended, it excited in
the animistic sphere a movement which gave rise to under-
standing. This central faculty was not long in producing
its circumferential, analogous faculties, and from that time
man could, up to a certain point, compare and judge, discern
and comprehend.
Soon he perceived by making use of these new faculties
that most of the signs which he used to express his thought
were accompanied by certain exclamations of voice, certain
cries more or less feeble or strong, more or less sharp or soft,
which seldom failed to present themselves together. He
noticed this coincidence which his companion had noticed
before him, and both judged that it would be convenient,
either in the darkness, or at a distance, or when an obstacle
had hidden them from each other, to substitute these diverse
inflections of the voice for the diverse signs which they ac-
companied. Perhaps they did so in some urgent circum-
stance, moved by some fear or by some vehement desire,
and they saw with keenest joy that they were heard and
understood.
It is needless to say how important this substitution was
for humanity. The reader perceives that nothing greater
could have taken place in nature and that if the moment
when such an occurrence presented itself for the first time
could have been fixed it would have merited the honours of
an eternal commemoration. But it was not so. Ah well!
who can know when or how, among what people, and in what
country it came? Perhaps it was sterile many times in
succession, or the unformed language to which it had given
birth disappeared with the humble cave which sheltered it.
For while to save time I refer to the same pair, can one doubt
that several generations should have passed away between
the smallest advances? The first steps which man makes in
the course of civilization are slow and painful. He is often
obliged to repeat the same things. Mankind as a whole is
without doubt indestructible, the race itself is strong; but

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
individual man is very feeble, particularly in the beginning.
It is, however, upon him that the foundations of all the
edifice rest.
Nevertheless, as I have said, many marriages, being
formed simultaneously or at slight intervals one from the
other in the same country and in several countries at the
same time, had given birth to a great number of families,
more or less drawn to one another, who followed nearly the
same course and developed themselves in the same manner,
thanks to the providential action which had thus determined
it. These families whose existence I have placed designedly
in the Borean or Hyperborean Race inhabited consequently
the environs of the Boreal pole and received necessarily
the influences of the rigorous climate in which they were
obliged to live. Their-habits, their customs, their ways of
nourishing, clothing, and lodging themselves, everything
affected them; everything around them took on a particular
character. Their caves resembled those of the people of
today who still inhabit the most septentrional regions of
Europe and Asia. These were hardly anything more than
holes dug in the earth while a few branches covered with
skin closed the opening. The name taniere [cave) which is
perpetuated even to our time, signified in the primitive
language of Europe a fire in the earth, and this proves that
the use of fire, very quickly understood by a race of men
to whom it was so necessary, goes back to most remote
antiquity.
No subject of discord or of hatred could spring up in the
midst of these families, no particular interest divided them,
whose chiefs or hunters or fishermen had found it easy to
provide subsistence. The profound peace which reigned
among them, drawing them near to each other by their
common leisures, facilitated alliances which brought them
still nearer each day, uniting them by family ties which the
women were the first to understand and make respected.
The authority which they maintained over their daughters

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 Language Becomes Articulate 27
and the benefit which they derived from it made the force
and utility of these ties. The language, at first mute and
consisting of signs only, then becoming articulate by the
substitution for the sign itself of the inflection of the voice
which was made at first unconsciously and which ordinari:y
accompanied the sign, extended quite rapidly. It was at
first very poor, as are all savage languages; but the number
of ideas being very limited among these families, it sufficed
for their needs. It must not be forgotten that the richest
tongues of today commenced by being composed of only a
small quantity of radical_terms.
Thus, for example, the Chinese tongue which is composed
of more than eighty thousand characters offers hardly
more than two hundred and fifty roots, which form scarcely
twelve hundred primitive words by the variation of the
accent.
I shall not relate here, how the sign being first changed
into a noun by means of a vocal inflection, the noun was
changed into a verb by the affiliation which it made with the
sign; nor how this verbal sign itself, being again vocalized
to express it, was thus changed into a sort of affix or in-
separable preposition which verbalized the nouns without the
aid of signs. I have elsewhere given ample details on this
subject. 1
All that I must add incidentally is that when the lan-
guage was vocalized, the radical terms were generally ad-
mitted in a tribe formed by a certain number of families
united and bound to each other by all the kindred ties, the
one who found or who invented a new thing gave it neces-
sarily a name which characterized it and remained attached
to it. Thus, for example, rdn or r2n, being applied to the
sign which indicated the movement of running or flight,
was given to the reindeer, which is a septentrional animal
very swift in running. Thus the word vdg, being likewise
substituted for the sign which expressed the movement of '
In my work La Lantue H~bf'aique and in La Lantue d'Oc.

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28 Hermeneutic Interpretation
going ahead, was given to any conveyance for transporta-
tion and particularly to the wagon, of which the Borean
Race made great use, when, having increased considerably
in numbers, they spread afar and fell in swarms upon Europe
and Asia. 1
1 The word rSn, not being able to be applied in the more temperate climates

to the reindeer (rhle) which does not exist there, it is applied for the same
reason by the French to renarcl (fox). From the word ~~ag, which signified a
wagon, the French have drawn the word 11aper (to wander about). All the
people of the North have named Ng the route traced by the chariot 11ag and
this word, changed through pronunciation, became the Latin via, the French
'IIOie, and the English way, etc.
I restrain myself in order not to fall into a useless and fatiguing prolixity,
where my inclination and favourite occupation might lead me. I desire only
that the reader may be convinced when I present later on any etymology
whatever, that the root upon which I support it, of Borean or Sudeen origin,
Celtic or Atlantean, is really authentic and cannot be attacked by science.
If I do not always give proof, it is to evade the delays and the useless display
of scholastic erudition out of place. However, the most of my readers will see
it quite easily. Who does not know, for example, that the root r4n or , s,,
that I just quoted, expresses the sense of running or of flowing, in all the Celtic
tongues? The Gallic Celt said clho runnia ; the Armories reclek ; the Irish
reathaim or ruidim ; the Saxon rannian ; the Belgian runne ; the German
rennen etc. The Greek pei signifies to jloTD, to run. It is to this root that is
attached the Oscitanic riu, a stream, a river and all its derivatives, and thence
come the names of the Rbine and the Rbone, etc.

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 CHAPTER V

DIGRESSION ON THE FOUR AGES OF THE WORLD AND RE-

FLECTIONS ON THIS SUBJECT--FIRST REVOLUTION IN THE
SOCIAL STATE AND FIRST MANIFESTATION OF THE
GENERAL WILL.

T HE poets, and after them the systematic philosophers,

have spoken much of the four ages of the world known
in the ancient mysteries under the names of golden, silver,
bronze, and iron ages, and, disregarding the fact that they
had reversed the order of these ages, have given the name of
Golden Age to that epoch when man, scarcely escaped from
the influences of instinct alone, began to make the first
trials of his animistic faculties and to enjoy their results.
It was without doubt the infancy of Mankind, the dawn of
social life. These beginnings were not without advantage,
especially when compared with the state of absolute apathy
and darkness which had preceded them. But it would be
strangely deceiving oneself to believe that this was the cul-
minating point of felicity, the point where civilization was
to stop. An infancy beyond natural limits would become
an imbecility; a dawn which would never bring the sun
would strike the earth with sterility and stupor.
A modern author has already remarked with much
sagacity that men, inclined naturally to embellish the past
especially when they are old, have acted in a national body
precisely as they act as private individuals; they have al-
29

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30 Hermeneutic Interpretation
ways given praise to the first ages of the world without
adequately reflecting that these first moments of their social
existence were very far from being as agreeable as they
pretend. The volatile and almost puerile imagination of
the Greeks has singularly confused this picture, in trans-
porting it purposely and to please the multitude from the
end to the beginning of time. That which they have named
the Golden Age ought to be called the age of Iron or Lead,
since it was that of Saturn, represented as a suspicious and
cruel tyrant, mutilating and dethroning his father in order
to succeed him, and as devouring his own children so as to
deliver himself from the fear of a successor. Saturn was the
symbol of Destiny. According to the doctrine of the mys-
teries, the passing of the kingdom from Destiny to that
of Providence was prepared by two median kingdoms: that
of Jupiter and that of Ceres called Isis by the Egyptians.
One of these kingdoms served to repress the audacity of the
Titans, that is to say, to subjugate the animal species and
establish harmony in Nature, by straightening the river
courses, draining the marshes, inventing works of agricul-
ture, arts, etc. The other served to regulate society by
establishing civil, political, and religious laws. These two
kingdoms were called the ages of Bronze and Silver. The
name of the Golden Age which followed was reserved for the
kingdom of Dionysus or Osiris. This kingdom which was
to bring happiness upon earth and maintain it there a long
time was subjected to periodical returns which were meas-
ured by the duration of the great year-the Platonic year.
Thus, according to this mysterious doctrine, the four ages
were to succeed each other immediately on earth like the
four seasons, until the end of time, commencing with the age
of iron or kingdom of Saturn~ompared to winter.
The system of the Brahmans conforms in this respect
with that of the Egyptian mysteries whence the Greeks
have taken theirs. The Satya-youg, which corresponds to
the first age, is that of physical reality. According to what

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 Reversed Order of the Ages 31

is said in the Pouranas, it is an age filled with frightful

catastrophes where the conspiring elements declare war;
where the gods are assailed by demons; where the terrestrial
globe, at first engulfed by the seas, is every instant menaced
with total ruin. The Tetra-youg which follows it is no more
fortunate. It is only at the epoch of the Douapar-youg that
the earth begins to present a picture more smiling and more
tranquil. Wisdom, united to valour, speaks by the mouth
of Rama and Krishna. Men listen and follow their lessons.
Sociability, arts, laws, morals, and religion flourished there,
vying with each other. The Kali-youg, which has com-
menced, is to terminate this fourth period by the appearance
of Vishnu, whose hand, armed with a glistening sword, will
strike the incorrigible sinners and make the vices and evils
which defile and afflict the universe disappear forever from
the face of the earth.
The Greeks, however, were not the only ones guilty of
having reversed the order of the ages and so brought con-
fusion into this beautiful allegory. The Brahmans them-
selves advocate today the Satya-youg and slander the present
age, and this despite their own annals which describe the
third age, the Douapar-youg, as the most brilliant and most
fortunate. This was the age of their maturity; they are
today in their decrepitude; and their attention as that of
old people is turned often toward the time of their childhood.
In general, the men whom pride makes melancholy,
always discontented with the present, always uncertain of
the future, love to reflect upon the past from which they
believe they have nothing to fear; they adorn it with smiling
colours which their imagination dares not give to the future.
They prefer, in their sombre melancholy, superfluous regrets
without fatigue to real desires which would cost them some
efforts. Rousseau was one of these men. Endowed with
great talents by nature he found himself misplaced by
Destiny. Agitated by ardent passions which he could not
satisfy, constantly seeing the end which he desired to attain

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32 Hermeneutic Interpretation
receding from him, he concentrated upon himself the activ-
ity of his soul, and, turning the impulses of the imagination
of his heart into vain speculations, into romantic situations,
he brought forth only political paradoxes or sentimental
exaggerations. The most eloquent man of his century he
declaimed against eloquence; he who was able to be one of
the most learned, disparaged the sciences; loving, he pro-
faned love; artist, he calumniated the arts, and, fearing to
be enlightened as to his own errors, he fled from the know-
ledge which had accused him; he dared not try to extin-
guish it. He would have extinguished it if Providence had
not opposed his blind transports, for his will was a terrible
power. In declaring the sovereignty of the people, in placing
the multitude above the laws, in overpowering its magi-
strates and its kings as representatives, in throwing off
entirely the authority of the priesthood, he tore up the social
contract which he pretended to establish. If the system of
this melancholy man had been followed, the human race
would have rapidly retrograded towards that primordial
nature which his clouded and disordered imagination re-
presented to him under an enchanting form, whereas it
concealed in reality nothing but what was discordant and
savage.
A man, attacked with the same malady but more cold
and more systematic, failed to put into action what Rousseau
had left with potentiality. He was called Weishaupt and
was a professor in a small town in Germany. Impressed by
the ideas of the French philosopher, he clothed them in the
mysterious forms of Illuminism and propagated them in the
lodges of the Freemasons. One could have no idea of
.the rapidity with which this propagation took place, so eager
are men to welcome that which flatters their passions. In a
moment European society was menaced by an imminent
danger. If the evil had not been arrested, it is impossible
to say to what point these ravages might have extended.
It is known that one of the adepts of this subversive society

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 First Degree of Social State 33
was struck by lightning in the street and carried fainting
into a private house; upon him was found a pamphlet which
contained the plan of a conspiracy and the names of the
principal conspirators, and this was nothing less than a
conspiracy to overthrow everywhere the Church and State,
in order to return all men to that primitive nature, which,
according to these visionaries, makes sovereign pontiffs
and kings without distinction.
What a dreadful error! To Weishaupt has been given
the title of Illuminated! . He was, on the contrary, a blind
fanatic who, with the best faith in the world, believing that
he was working for the welfare of the human race, was
pushing it into a frightful abyss.
It is because I know that at the admittance of many in-
itiates to the mysteries of this extravagant policy, a descrip-
tion of the Golden Age was read, that I have wished to
destroy the false idea which might still exist in some minds.
Weishaupt, even as Rousseau, had only an indifferent learn-
ing. If both had known the true traditions, they would
have known that the idea of placing the Golden Age at the
beginning of society among men wanting in government and
culture had only appeared plausible to certain Greek and
Latin poets because it was in harmony with the erroneous
opinion of their times. At the opening of the ancient mys-
teries, no doubt much above those of Weishaupt, it was not
so brilliant a description that one read, but the beginning
of the cosmogony of Sanchoniathon, which, as one knows,
presents a picture very different and very gloomy.
That one may not be surprised at my devoting such a
long digression to oppose an idea so trifling as that of the
Golden Age, it is necessary to consider that those who today
write the most coldly regarding politics, and who would
laugh with pity if they were accused of indulging a like idea,
only obey, however, a movement of which politics has been
the occasion. If Rousseau had not been moved by it, he
could not have said in his Discours sur l'Origine de l'lnegalite,
a

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34 Hermeneutic Interpretation
that man who meditates is a depraved animal; and in his
Emile, that the more men know the more they deceive
themselves; that the only means of evading error is ignor-
ance. It is never the men whom reason counsels or whose
pen is guided by interest who are dangerous in politics in
whatever party they range themselves; it is those who,
possessed by a fixed idea, whatever it may be, write with
persuasion and enthusiasm. I return to my subject.
Man, such as I left him in terminating the last chapter,
had arrived by the successive development of his faculties
at the first degree of social state; he was established in fami-
lies united by bonds of kinship; he had invented many use-
ful things; he was lodged; he was coarsely dressed; he had
domesticated many kinds of animals; he understood the
use of fire, and, above all this, he possessed an articulate
language which, although unformed, sufficed for his needs.
This state, that many complaisant poets and some mediocre
statesmen have believed to be the Golden Age, was anything
but that; it was in fact a first step made in civilization,
which was to be followed by a second and by a third. The
course had been opened, and it was as impossible for man
to stop there at his first appearance as it would have been
impossible for him not to enter there; the action of Providence
and that of Destiny acted in concert in this event.
In the meantime, woman, who could justly take pride
in all the good which had resulted, did not understand how
to profit by it; she committed a very grave mistake in this
beginning of civilization, a mistake whose consequences,
terrible for her, almost brought about ruin for the entire
race. Content with the change which was made in her lot,
she thought only of fixing it, and, considering only her in-
dividual interest, forgot the general interest of society. As
her instinct inclined her to possess rather than to enjoy,
and as her vanity showed itself always before that of any
other sentiment, she became attached to her husband more
through ~terest than through pleasure; and she made use

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 Feminine Despotism 35
of her vanity, rather to be assured of possession by it than to
make her own more agreeable to him. She wished always
to be loved before loving, so as never to risk her empire.
Man, inclined by a contrary instinct to enjoy rather than
to possess, and making his pride yield to what his pity had
first pointed out to him as weakness, facilitated the inter-
ested projects of his companion. As his outdoor labours
excited her sedentary indolence, he raised no obstacles to the
daily usurpation of the woman, who soon found herself,
according to her desires, absolute mistress of all the house-
hold; she made herself the centre of it, arranged everything,
and commanded him whom Nature had destined to be her
master. The education which she gave to her daughters
conformed to her ideas, increased in them the force of instinct,
and made them more and more disposed to follow the per-
verted route which she had opened; so that at the end of
several generations feminine despotism was established.
But what instinct had done on the one hand instinct
had to undo on the other; the movement begun there could
not be arrested; it was necessary that Destiny should take
its course. Man, subject to the woman by a kind of proud
indolence, soon perceived that it was easier to renounce
possession than to enjoy. He encountered beyond his cave
some young maiden who awakened his desires, and, as per-
haps his wife had passed the age of fruitfulness, he wished
to associate with another of her kind. At these tidings,
jealousy, a passion heretofore unknown, was awakened in
his wife; wounded vanity and alarmed interest caused it.
The most frightful troubles were the consequence. What
occurred in one family disturbed all; for the first time tro~.ble
became general; for the first time the Borean Race felt that
it could have general interests. The men on one side, the
women on the other, discussed in their way this point of
legislation, the first that had been discussed: could a man
have several wives?
As there had not been up to that time any exclusive cult

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36 Hermeneutic Interpretation
which could dominate their reason, and, as the hopes of
another existence could not be born in their torpid intelli-
gence, the men decided that this could be. Assembling
for the first time in great masses away from their caves,
they realized that their strength, being mingled, was in-
creased in intensity and that their resolutions had something
solemn. The more timid were astonished at their audacity.
Such was the occasion and such the result of the first use
that man made of his general will.
The women, irritated to the last degree by a decision so
contrary to their dominion, resolved to impede the execu-
tion of it by all means possible. They could not conceive
how these same men, so weak when with them, had been
able to show such a great audacity. They hoped to bring
them back, but in vain; because the act which had just
happened had created a thing hitherto unknown, a thing
whose results were to be immense: opinion which, by im-
pressing upon pride a new direction, changes it into honour
and places it a step beyond pity. In this situation, the
women ought to have let themselves be inspired by compas-
sion; but, their vanity not permitting this ascending move-
ment which might have been able to stir their intelligence,
they trusted in their instinct, which ruined them. Ruse
having persuaded them that they could oppose weakness
with force and that their husbands being frightened would
not dare combat them, they imprudently provoked them,
but hardly had they raised their arms, when they were
vanquished; Destiny which they had invoked had over-
powered them.

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 CHAPTER VI

SEQUEL-DEPLORABLE LOT OF WOMAN AT THE BEGINNING OF

SOCIETY-SECOND REVOLUTION-WAR AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES-oPPOSITION OF THE RACES

THEfewcalamitous event which I have just related in very

words is not at all an idle hypothesis imagined
only to support a system; it is a real fact which unfortunately
has left too many traces. The torrent of ages has not been
able to efface them yet; everywhere they engross the atten-
tion of the historian and observer. Consider the savage
people who, adhering nearest to the Borean Race, have
preserved their original customs, the SamoyMes, for example;
you will still find there in all its force the fatal cause of the
evils which during a great lapse of time have weighed upon
woman. She wished to dominate by ruse, she was crushed
by force. She wished to master all, and nothing was left
to her. One cannot think without shuddering of the hor-
rible state to which she was reduced. It is only too natural
for man to pass from one extremity to the other in his sen-
timents and to break with disdain the objects of his love
or his veneration.
There still exists in our day peoples whom local situa-
tions or fatal circumstances have estranged from the benefits
of religion and civilization, among whom the wretched
condition of woman is perpetuated. The manner in which
she is treated there cannot be related without disgust. She
37

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
is less the companion of man than his slave, less a human
being than a beast of burden. The most beautiful half of
mankind, whom Nature seems to have taken pleasure in
making for le bonheur, has lost there even hope. Her fate
there is so deplorable that it is not rare to see mothers,
whom compassion renders unnatural, suffocating their
daughters in order to spare them the horrible future
which awaits them.
0 women, women, objects dear and fatal! if this writing
falls into your hands do not hasten to assume prejudice
against its author. He is the most sincere of your friends,
he was perhaps the tenderest of your lovers! if he points
.out your faults he points out also your benefits. He has
already pointed them out when he said that the beginnings of
civilization were your work. Defend yourselves from
puerile vanity, production of your instinct, and search in your
heart, and above all in your intelligence, for the gentler
sentiments and more generous inspirations. You will find
them there easily, since the Divinity who is the Source of it
has wished that all should be developed in your breast with
exemplary promptitude. You offer the charms of adoles-
cence at an epoch when man is still but a child, and your
tender glances betray already the emotions of your soul
when he is ignorant of their existence. How admirable
you would be if, always on guard against the movements of
an exclusive vanity, of a jealous interest, you would turn
to the profit of man and of society the enchanting means
which you possess I Assuredly would you then be called
the tutelary genius of infancy, the charm of youth, the
support and counsel of the man; thus would you embellish
the dream of life.
The mistakes that I have shown and those that I shall
yet show, you will find foreign to you, and they are in fact,
both in time and form; but the substance exists and you can
commit them in a different way; your education badly
understood and badly conducted drives you to it; be careful.

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 The Borean Race 39
Europe is in a secret fermentation. If you do not conduct
yourselves with discretion I tell you with sorrow that the
fate of the women of Asia surely awaits you.
But let us return to the history of bygone ages.
While the Borean Race was becoming civilized, and while
it was increasing in numbers from year to year and spreading
over greater extent of territory, the centuries rolled on in
silence. All inventions were being perfected, and one could
observe already among the different tribes of which the entire
race was composed some beginnings of pastoral and agri-
cultural life. Canoes had been hollowed out to traverse
the arms of the sea and to navigate rivers, and wagons had
been made to penetrate more easily into the interior of the
country. When the pastures were exhausted in one country
they passed into another. The earth, which never failed
the inhabitants, sufficed for their needs. The deep forests
abounded in game, the seas, the rivers offered inexhaustible
and easy fishing. Any private discords whic~ arose, quickly
extinguished, never became general, and the people, destined
to be the most warlike in the world, were then the most
pacific. This people might have enjoyed at this epoch a
happiness as great as their position would have permitted
if a part of them had not groaned under the weight of op-
pression. Women were everywhere reduced to the state
in which one sees them today among the SamoyM.es. Very
nearly servants, they were burdened with the most painful
labours. When they became aged, which was rare enough,
so that they could serve no further, they were often bar-
barously drowned. The groans of these unfortunate victims
awakened at last the solicitude of Providence which, tired
of so much cruelty and wishing besides to advance this
stagnant and roughly formed civilization, determined a
potential movement, which Destiny brought into action.
At that time the Black Race, which I shall call always
Sudeen on account of its equatorial origin and in opposition
to the White Race which I have named Borean, the Black

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Race I say, existed in all the pomp of social state. It covered
entire Mrica with powerful nations sprung from it; it pos-
sessed Arabia and had planted its colonies over all the
meridional coasts of Asia and very far into the interior.
An infinity of monuments which bear the Mrican characters
still exist in our day in all these latitudes and attest the
grandeur of the peoples to which they have belonged. The
enormous constructions of Mahabalipouram, the caverns
of Ellora, the temples of Isthakar, the ramparts of the Cau-
casus, the pyramids of Memphis, the excavations of Thebes
in Egypt, and many other works, which the astonished
imagination attributes to the giants, prove the long exist-
ence of the Sudeen Race and the immense progress that it
had made in the arts. Regarding these monuments an
interesting observation can be made. It is that the type,
after which they are all constructed, is that of a cavern
hollowed out in a mountain, and this gives rise to the thought
that the first habitations of the Mrican tribes were sorts of
crypts formed in this manner and that the name of troglo-
dytes must have been their first generic one. The type of
the primitive habitation of the Borean nations which has
been the wagon is recognized in the lightness of Grecian
architecture, in the form of ancient temples, and even in
that of the houses. As for the intermediate races which
have dominated or which still dominate in Asia and which
still belong to the Yellow Race, the Oriental Tartar and the
Chinese, very numerous although very advanced in its old
age, it is evident that all their monuments trace faithfully
their form from the tent which was their first dwelling.
Now the Sudeen Race, very powerful and widely spread
throughout Mrica and the south of Asia, was but imper-
fectly aware of the septentrional countries of this part of
the world, and had of Europe only a very vague idea. The
general opinion was, no doubt, that this vast extent, occu-
pied by sterile lands and stamped with an eternal winter,
must be uninhabitable. The contrary opinion was held in

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 The Sudeen Race
Europe in respect to Mrica, since the Borean Race, having
attained a certain degree of civilization, began to have a
geographical science. However that may be, the north of
Europe and Asia came to be known by the Sudeens at the
moment when this event was to take place. Whatever
were the circumstances which brought it about and the
means which were employed for this, it matters not; Pro-
vidence had willed it and it was.
The white men perceived for the first time by the light
of their burned forests men of a colour different from theirs.
But this difference alone did not strike them. These men
covered with extraordinary garments, resplendent with
cuirasses, handled with dexterity redoubtable arms unknown
in these regions. They had numerous cavalry; they fought
from chariots, and like colossi, advancing with formidable
manreuvres, flung death on every side. They were stupefied.
Some white women, of whom these strangers had taken
possession and whose good will they strove to win, were not
difficult to seduce. They were too unhappy in their own
country to have nourished any love for it. Returning to
their caves they showed the brilliant necklaces, the pleasing
and delicately shaded stuffs which they had received. N oth-
ing more was needed for them to raise their heads above all
others. A large number profiting by the shadows of night
fled and rejoined the newcomers. Fathers and husbands,
thinking only of their resentment, seized their feeble weapons
and advanced to reclaim their daughters or their wives.
Their movement had been anticipated and was awaited.
The result of the combat which ensued was not doubtful.
Many were killed, a great number taken prisoners; the rest
fled.
Alarm, gaining by degrees, spread itself in a short time
throughout the Borean Race. The tribes assembled in
great numbers and deliberated upon what was to be done,
without having considered in advance what they would
deliberate, without even knowing what a deliberation was.

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Common peril awakened the general will. This will mani-
fested itself, and they issued a decree in form of a plebiscite,
but its execution was not so easy as it had been formerly.
The general will no longer acted. The assembled people
felt it and they saw that the intention of making war was
not sufficient and they would undoubtedly be vanquished
if the means of directing it was not found. Thereupon a
man, whom Nature had endowed with a mighty stature and
extraordinary force, advanced in the midst of the assembly
and declared that he would undertake to disclose these
means. His imposing aspect, his assurance, electrified the
assembly. A general cry arose in his favour. He was pro-
claimed the Herman or Gherman, that is to say, the chief of
men. Such was the first military chief.'
The important decree which established one man above
all the others had no need to be written or promulgated.
It was the energetic expression of the general will. The
force and the truth of the movement were engraved upon
all minds. When it has been necessary to write laws has
been when laws were no longer unanimous.
At first the Herman divided the men into three classes.
In the first he placed all the venerable men not able to endure
the fatigues of war; he called in the second, all the young
and robust men, of whom he made up his army, and placed
in the third the weak and old, but still active, whom he
destined to provide for all its wants. The young women
and children were sent off beyond the rivers or into the
depths of the forests. The aged women and young boys
were.employed to carry the provisions or to guard the wagons.
As the old men were entrusted with distributing to each of
the combatants his daily rations and as they looked after
the provisions they were given the name of Diet, that is to
say the subsistence, and this name is preserved even to our
It is from the name of Herman or Gherman that the names German and
Germany are derived. The root here signifies in its literal sense an eminenu,
figuratively speaking, a SOfJef'eip, a mastet.

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 The First Herman 43
day in that of the German Diet, not that it occupies itself
as at other times with subsistence properly speaking, but
with the existence of the political body. This Diet was the
model of all the senates which were instituted afterwards
in Europe for the purpose of representing the general will.
As for the two other classes established in the mass of the
population, to the one which contained the warriors was
given the name of Leyt, that is to say the elite, and to the
other, that of Folk or Volg, that is to say, the one who
follows, the one who serves, the crowd, the vulgar. 2
This is the origin of the inequality of conditions so much
sought for and which was established so early among the
septentrional nations. This inequality was neither the
result of caprice nor oppression; it was the necessary result
of the warlike state in which these nations found themselves
engaged. Destiny which provoked this condition determined
all the consequences of it. It divided the people irresistibly
into two classes: those of the strong and those of the weak;
the strong ones called to fight and the weak reserved for
feeding and serving the combatants. This state of war,
which by its long duration had become the habitual state of
the Borean Race, consolidated these two classes and in the
course of time caused fixed demarcation and hereditary oc-
cupation in them. There, in the heart of this race, were born
nobility and plebeianism with all their privileges and their
attributes, and when, after having been a long time enslaved
or restrained, this same race became at last superior to the

1 This word signifies the manner of feeding upon or providing subsistence,

in the Greek word 81111'11 as well as in the Latin diteta, in the French diete, in
the English diet, etc. Even today it is said in English to diet one, to express
the care that is taken in nourishing someone. This word preserves the ancient
root tlJd, the nourishment, united to the article de, in the English the, in the
German die. From this root tlJd have emerged the verbs edere in Latin, tetan
in Saxon, to eat in English, essen in German, etc.
The words Leyt and Volk are still used in German. The Attic Greek word
M-Ills is attached to the word leyt. The Latin vulgus is derived from the word
Volg, as the French word joule (crowd).

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44 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Sudeen Race and when it subjugated the diverse nations,
it still kept the existence of these two classes in the titles of
Borean and Hyperboreans, 1 or the Barons and the High
Barons, which the conquerors, having become sovereign or
feudal masters, claimed.
It is necessary to consider as a thing worthy of attention that whereas
the word Borean became a title of honour in that of Baron in Europe, in Asia
and in Africa the word Sudun held the same sense in that of Syd which was
written very inappropriately Cid.

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 CHAPTER VII

FIRST SOCIAL ORGANIZATION-THIRD REVOLUTION-SERVI-

TUDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

AT which
the time when the Herman had made the division,
I mentioned in the preceding chapter, he con-
sidered extending this warlike constitution as much as he
was able, and chose to this effect several lieutenants, whom
he sent away among the Borean tribes in order to inform
them of what was taking place and to engage them in the
name of the common welfare to unite themselves according
to the same principles, and to come in all haste to fight the
enemy. This embassy, whose necessity suggested ways
and means, had all the success that could be expected. The
different tribes, alarmed by the accounts which they had
heard and drawn on by the impressed movement, all became
constituted on the same plan and created as many Hermans
as there were congregations. These different Hermans,
uniting, formed a corps of military chiefs, who were not
long in feeling, guided always by the force of things, that
it was useful, as much for them as for public matters, to
give themselves a supreme chief. This chief proclaimed on
his own presentation and because he was evidently the
strongest and most powerful was called Heroll, that is to
say, the chief of all. The Diets of the various tribes re-
This name in changing from the guttural inflection into that of HercNl
or Hercules has become celebrated throughout all the earth. It bas been
45

Digitized bvGoogle
 Hermeneutic Interpretation
cognized him and the different classes of Leyts and of Folks
swore to obey him. Such was the first emperor, and such
was the origin of feudal government; for in Europe, and
among the Borean Race, imperial or feudal government
does not differ. An emperor who does not rule over military
chiefs, sovereigns of the people whom they govern, is not a
veritable emperor. He is not at all a Her~ll, properly speak-
ing he is a Herman, a military chief more or less powerful.
An emperor, such as Agamemnon of Homer, must reign
over kings.
But, besides the two primordial classes which divided
the entire tribes into men-at-arms and serfs, there were
formed two other classes superior to those which were com-
posed of chosen men who were attached principally to the
Her611 or the Herman and who formed his guard, his suite,
and, in short, his court. These two classes, to which in
time were attributed great privileges, gave their name to
the entire race, especially when this race, having seized the
dominion, spread afar their conquests and founded powerful
nations. From these sprang the Heruli and the Germans.
And as in imitation of the HerOlls, or Hermans, the in-
ferior chiefs rendered powerful by conquest had also their
followers called Leudes, on account of the class of men-at-
arms from whom they came; they gave their names like-
wise to entire peoples, when these peoples conducted by
them succeeded in distinguishing themselves from the
nation, properly speaking, by establishing themselves at a
distance. 1
applied in the course of time to the Universal Divinity, to the sun, as that
of Herman has been given to the God of War. The symbol of this God which
was represented by a lance, was called Irminsul, or rather Herman-Sayl.
It is necessary to note with care that all the peoples, whose names are
found in the ancient writers ordinarily included under the generic name of
Celt or of Scythian, were in reality only the divisions of one and the same
people issued from one and the same race. The name of Cells, which they
gave in general to themselves, signified the males, the strong, the illustrious:
it was derived directly from the word held, a hero, a master. The name of

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 Boreans Subservient to Sudeens 47
But whilst the Borean Race was thus preparing itself for
combat, the combat had continued. The Sudeens profit-
ing by their advantages had advanced into the interior of
the country. Fire and sword had opened for them routes
through the forest hitherto impassable. They crossed rivers
with facility by means of bridges of boats which they under-
stood how to build. In proportion as they advanced, they
raised inaccessible strongholds. The Boreans notwith-
standing their number and their valour could not hold out
against these redoubtable enemies, so far above them in their
discipline, their tactics, and difference in arms. If they
tried to fall upon their enemies unawares, or to surprise
them under cover of the night, they found them enclosed
in fortified camps. Everything betrayed this unfortunate
race, and seemed to conduct it to its absolute ruin. Even
the women of the Boreans abandoned them for their con-
querors. The first women who freed themselves, having
learned the dialect, served the Sudeens as guides and showed
them the most hidden retreats of their Borean fathers and
husbands. These unfortunates, surprised, surrounded on
all sides, cut off, dexterously thrown upon the banks of the
rivers or driven back against the mountains, were obliged
to surrender themselves or to die in misery. Those who
were made prisoners in the combats or who surrendered to
evade death submitted to slavery.
However the Mricans, already masters of a great part
of the country, had had the natural riches of it explored
by their savants. They had discovered mines of copper in
abundance, tin, lead, mercury, and above all iron, whose
great utility rendered it so precious to these peoples. They
found immense forests rich in timber. The plains offered

Scythians, which their enemies gave to them, signified, on the contrary, the
impure ones, the reprobates; it came from the word Culh or Sculh applied to
all things which one sets aside or which repels one or which one repels. It
designated properly spittle. It was by this offensive word that the Black
Race characteriZed the White, on account of the colour of spittle.

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
to the tillers of the soil who would clear them the hope of
splendid harvests of grain. Rivers in great numbers pre-
sented their slopes of rich pasturage capable of receiving
and nourishing a large number of cattle. These tidings
carried into Mrica and Asia drew a host of colonists.
They began to exploit the mines. The miserable Boreans,
whom they had taken, and whom they continued to take,
were given over to grasping masters who employed them at
this coarse work. They were skilled only in roughly digging
the earth; they were taught to do it methodically, using
suitable implements. They penetrated into the interior of
the mountains and drew from them in great masses, minerals
of copper, iron, and other metals. They were obliged to
work and to smelt them. Buried alive in mephitic abysses,
attached to wheels, forced to keep up enormous fires and
to beat the fiery masses on the anvil, what suffering they
had to endure!
Others, during this time, dragged the plough and watered
with their sweat the furrows from which their conquerors
were to reap the harvest. The women even were not spared.
Mter the victory was decided and when their help was not
needed further they were treated no better than their
husbands. They were sold as slaves, and were sent with the
men pell-mell into Mrica, where their posterity was specu-
lated upon while they were employed in the vilest labours.
If the Borean nations instead of being still nomadic had
been fixed, if they had inhabited cities as those which the
Spaniards found in America, ~hey would have entirely
perished. But it seemed that Providence, desiring their
preservation, had impressed upon their minds an invincible
horror for all that had the appearance of a walled enclosure.
This horror, augmented without doubt by the numberless
calamities which they experienced in the prisons of their
tyrants, lasted a great number of centuries after their
deliverance, even in the midst of their triumphs. And,
notwithstanding the melange which had many times taken

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 Many Borean Hordes Still Nomadic 49

place between the peoples of the South and the North, one
still finds many hordes of Borean origin, whose repugnance
for fixed dwellings nothing has ever been able to conquer,
even after having settled in the mildest climates.
What saved the White Race from utter destruction was
their facility in fleeing from their conquerors, after they had
recognized the impossibility of resisting them. Remnants
of the different tribes gathered together by the hermans,
who since their creation had not ceased to be renewed, took
refuge in the north of Europe and Asia and reaching those
immense regions which had served as their cradle, they made
there a stronghold of the ice accumulated by long winters.
Their oppressors strove at first to follow them there, but
after many fruitless attempts were repulsed by the asperity
of the climate.
4

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 CHAPTER VIII

FOURTH REVOLUTION-PEACE AND COMMERCE

IN thethetwomeanwhile an implacable war continued between

races: on one side, the vanquishers wished to
obtain slaves to exploit the mines and cultivate the lands,
on the other the vanquished wished, first, to avenge the
evils which they had suffered and which they still suffered,
and, afterwards, to appropriate what they could plunder of
the chattels of the Sudeens. There were among these
chattels, besides cattle and grain, numberless objects whose
great utit:ty the Boreans had recognized, and especially
weapons of copper and iron, and instruments of all kinds
made of these two metals.
Often at a moment when least expected, a deluge of
Boreans inundated the settlements of their enemies; every-
thing that they cou' d they took away and what they could
not bear off was destroyed. These incursions generally
took place in the heart of winter, while a sheet of ice was
over the rivers and lakes. All the precautions of the Mricans
were useless against the first violence of the torrent; less
accustomed to the rigours of the climate they could not
leave their strongholds so easily, and the country without
defence became the prey of their ancient possessors. The
Boreans fell into ambuscades, and often left men dead and
prisoners, but the spoils which they carried away always
compensated them beyond their losses; in seizing certain
so

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 Borean Incursions 51
mines, certain forges, they often rescued a great number of
their compatriots and so took with them many skilful work-
men of the Sudeens. The advantage which they succeeded
in deriving from these captures was of incalculable import-
ance; one of their hermans, who perhaps had been a slave
of their enemies, persuaded them to use their prisoners for
the same labours, so as to procure equal. arms in sufficient
quantity. Their success was at first mediocre, but they
learned finally the art of smelting copper and iron and this
was an enormous step that they took. Their lances, their
arrows, their hatchets, although badly shaped and badly
tempered, became no less redoubtable in hands so strong as
theirs; for it is well to observe here that as to physical force
they were infinitely superior to the Sudeens. Their lofty
stature had at first caused them to be taken for giants, and
it appears even certain that the fable of the Titans, although
having in view a cosmogonical object, has been materially
conceived from them, when having succeeded in clearing
Europe of their adversaries they carried the war into Mrica
and menaced the temple of Jupiter Ammon.
As soon as the season became less vigorous, the Sudeens
again took the offensive; but it was in vain that, during six
or eight months of the year, they covered the country with
their armies; the Boreans, accustomed to evade them, turned
back into the vast solitudes of the north of Asia and seemed
to disappear from their s"ght. At the first approach of
winter, at the moment when the frosts obliged their enemies
to retreat, they were seen emerging again from their shelters
and recommencing their depredations.
This hostile condition, which lasted a long time no doubt,
had the inevitable result of developing in the minds of the
Boreans a warlike valour, by changing to a permanent
passion the instinct of courage which they had received from
nature. Trained by their numerous defeats, they learned
from their very enemies the art of fighting them with fewer
disadvantages. Happily relieved of all prejudices, without

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52 Hermeneutic Interpretation
other stubbornness than that of resistance, they easily changed
their bad tactics for better and did not keep their rude and
less dangerous arms, when they had found occasion to pro-
cure more formidable ones. At the end of some centuries
these men, whom the proud inhabitants of Mrica and of
Asia regarded as contemptible savages, whose life was at
their mercy, became warriors whose attacks could not as
at other times be disdained. Already the extreme frontiers
had been crossed more than once, the forts razed and de-
stroyed, settlements too far buried in the interior of the
country pillaged or devastated, and soon the very towns
built along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea from the
Euxine to the Atlantic Ocean did not feel themselves
safe, notwithstanding the ramparts with which they were
surrounded.
At that time, the Sudeen nations to which these colonies
belonged, reflected on this critical situation and judged that
it would be better to seek means of living in peace with the
natives of the country than to be compelled to sustain an
eternal war against them, from which they would receive
only harm without benefit. One of these nations, the first
perhaps to which the idea had come, determined to send an
embassy to the Boreans; it was again necessity which de-
termined this act. Destiny, in developing the consequences
of a first event, placed the Will of Man in opposition with
them and furnished it with occasions to try its strength.
No doubt this was a spectacle as novel as extraordinary
for men whose natural state was a warlike one, who had
understood no other manner of existing than that of braving
the enemy or fearing him, and who, born in the midst of
alarms, had never conceived the idea of repose or of seeing
the disarmed enemy coming to them preceded by a great
number of their compatriots whose chains were not only
broken but replaced by brilliant emblems. These compatri-
ots appointed as interpreters, having asked to speak to the
herman, began to spread out before him the rich presents

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 First Treaty of Peace 53
of which they were the bearers and afterwards explained to
him the desires of the Sudeens; but as a word expressing the
idea of Peace did not exist in the Borean tongue, they used
one which expressed Liberty, 1 and they said that they had
come to ask for liberty and to offer it.
I am convinced that the herman had at first much diffi-
culty in understanding what was demanded of him, and that
he had to tum to the old men to know if anything like that
existed in the traditions. Nothing existed to which this
could be compared. From time immemorial there had
been war; could this condition cease? Why and how?
The interpreters of the Sudeens interested in making the
embassy successful did not lack good reasons; they easily
showed to the Diet that the cessation of hostilities would
offer to both peoples a great advantage in leaving them more
leisure to attend to their labours and more security to enjoy
them. Instead of seeking to pillage from one another the
objects which they needed, instead of carrying them off
dripping with the blood of friends and brothers, would it
not be better to exchange them without peril? Limits could
be arranged for this, which they would reciprocally pledge
never to overstep; a place could be determined where they
could make the exchanges. If they wished iron, arms, stuffs,
why not give them in exchange for cattle, grain, and furs?
The Diet composed of old men liked these reasons. The
warrior-class instinctively feeling that peace would diminish
its influence had much difficulty in consenting. They yielded
finally, but without surrendering their arms. Among the
other tribes the greater part followed the example of the first;
but there were some who would not agree to it. For the
first time it was seen possible for a nation to be divided, and
also for the first time it was felt that the smaller number
should yield to the greater. The HerOll, having assembled
his hermans, counted the voices and, perceiving that the
' In German the word frey still signifies free and the word frid signifies
peace.

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54 Hermeneutic Interpretation
majority was for peace, used his authority to constrain the
minority. This act of the greatest importance took place
without its importance being realized. The Borean Race
was already governed without suspecting that it had a
government; it obeyed the law without knowing what law
was. Events brought forth events and the force of things
inclined the Will.
Thus the first treaty of peace which was concluded was
also a treaty of commerce. Without the second motive,
the first could not have been conceived.
But two acts which followed greatly amazed those of
the Boreans who saw them. The first, which was made
without preparation, consisted of tracing with the point of
a stiletto on a sort of prepared skin several characters to
which the Sudeens who traced them seemed to attach great
importance. Some of the old men, having asked of the
interpreters what they signified, teamed with astonishment
mingled with admiration that these black men represented
in this manner all that had just taken place, so as to remem-
ber it and to be able to give account of it to their hermans
when they returned home to them. One of the old men,
greatly impressed by this idea, judged that it was not im-
possible to adopt it for his tribe, and, as soon as he had con-
ceived the thought and had merely tried to trace with his
stick upon the sand simple lines straight or crossed to express
the numbers, it was sufficient; the art of writing was hom
and entered the domain of Destiny which developed it.
The second act which was performed with great solem-
nity had as its object a sacrifice which the Sudeens made
to the sun, their great Divinity. The general worship of all
the nations of African origin was Sabeanism. This is the
most ancient form of worship whose remembrance has been
preserved on earth. 1 The pomp of the spectacle, the raised
1 The word Zaab designated the sun in the primitive tongue of the African

people. It signified properly the Father, living or resplendent. Thence the

Hebrew word sehb, gold.

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 Sabean ism 55
altar, the sacrificed victim, the extraordinary ceremonies,
the men clothed in magnificent robes invoking on their
knees the Star of light, all this struck with admiration the
mass of Boreans gathered to enjoy so unique a spectacle.
The interpreters, interrogated anew on this matter, responded
that it was thus that the Sudeens conducted themselves
when they wished to give thanks to the sun for some great
benefit, or to persuade it to grant one. Although the old
men understood well the words which the interpreters used,
they &auld not, however, comprehend the idea which these
words contained. What they did receive seemed to them
extravagant. Was it possible to believe that the sun which
rose every day to lighten the world might grant other bene-
fits? Was it possible that it favoured one people more than
another, and could it be less good today than tomorrow?
The intelligence of these men still apathetic was not suscep-
tible of rising to anything spiritual; the instinctive and the
animistic spheres alone were developed in them; their only
emotions came to them through their needs or passions.
They had no inspirations; the moment was not far off when
they would begin to feel their influences; but it could not
be by any other perceptible means. Everything has its
principle and there can be but one; forms alone can vary.
When the philosophers of all ages have sought for the origin
of intellectual things in that which is not intellectual, they
have testified to their ignorance. Like produces only like.
It is not fear that has caused the gods to be hom; it is the di-
vine spark confided to our intelligence, whose radiance mani-
fests all that is divine. Who would not sigh to hear one of
the greatest philosophers of the past century, Voltaire, the
coryphee of his time, say seriously: "It thunders; who makes
it thunder? it might perhaps be a serpent in the vicinity;
this serpent must be appeased. Hence the cult." What
pitiable reasoning! How could he so forget himself! How
does a man who arrogantly pretends to enlighten Mankind
dare to express such an hypothesis?

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
I do not wish to forget before terminating this chapter
to say, that one can trace back to the first treaty of peace
which was concluded in Europe, the first generic name which
was given to the autochthonous nations inhabiting it. It
appears certain that up to that-time they had taken only
that of man. But having learned through their interpreters
that the Sudeens gave themselves the title of Atlanteans, 2 that
is to say, masters of the Universe, they chose that of Celts,
heroes, and knowing besides, that on account of the white
colour of their skin they had been given the offensive name
of Scythians, they designated their enemies by the expres-
sive name of Pelasgians, 3 that is to say, tanned skins.
The word man which ~is still used to designate man in nearly all of the
septentrional languages signifies pre-eminently Being. It comes from the root
4n or 8n, expressing in Celtic the verb lo be, thence the Greek "" the Latin
ens, the English am, etc.
This well-known name is composed of two~ words aua, the master, the
ancient, the father, and lant universal space.
J Already having explained the name of the Celts, I mention here only
that it should be pronounced Kelts, being formed from the Greek Ke'A.,.ol.
I have also explained the name of Scythians. As for the name Pelasgian it
can also signify the Black People because the word ask, which designated
a wood, designated also a people. One could see likewise without much
difficulty seafaring people, since they were really that.

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 CHAPTER IX

CONCEKNING PROPERTY AND THE INEQUALITY OF CONDITIONS

-THEIR ORIGIN

UP ofto their
this time the Boreans had possessed many things
own without the abstract idea of property
entering into their mind. It did not any more occur to
them to doubt the possession of their bow and their arrows
than that of their arms or their hands. Their cave belonged
to them because they had dug it out, their wagon was theirs
because they had made it. Those who possessed reindeer,
elk, or any other cattle enjoyed them without trouble be-
cause they possessed them. The pains they had taken in
raising them, the pains they continued to take in feeding
them assured their possession. Everyone had them or could
have them at the same price. As the earth failed no one,
no one had the right to complain. Property was such a
consequence of the social state and the social state such a
consequence of the nature of man that the idea of fixing
and confirming it by law could not be conceived. Besides
how could any law be made? All political right was then
founded only upon customs, and these customs were linked
together with the same force as other acts of life. Now, each
associated the consciousness of his life with that of his proper-
ty, and it would have seemed as strange to seek to live the
life of another as to wish to enjoy the fruit of another's
labour; and this was nothing else than living his own life.
57

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
The political writers who do not see what I have said
are tormented trying to find the origin of the right of pro-
perty and are lost in absurd hypotheses. One may as well
question the right of man to possess his body. The body
of man is not man entire; it is not he, properly speaking,
but only that which belongs to him. His property is not
his body either, but is that which belongs to his body. To
steal his body is to take away his life; to steal from him what
belongs to his body is to carry off the means of life. Force
can no doubt deprive him of both; but force can also pre-
serve them, and man has as much right to defend his rfe,
as to defend the means of his life, that is to say, his body
and that which belongs to his body or his property.
Thus from the moment that Providence determined a
principle of social state among men, there was necessarily
a principle of property; for the one could not possibly exist
without the other. The first instinctive sensations of which
the Kingdom of Man may have consciousness are to enjoy
and possess for the man and to possess and enjoy for the
woman; it is even from this very contrast, as I have shown,
that the first emotion which causes all the rest issues.
Property is then a need as inherent in man as pleasure.
The sensation of this need transformed into sentiment in
the animistic sphere, becoming permanent as all the other
sentiments in the absence of the need itself which brought
it forth, produces there a multitude of passions whose force
is revealed and spread in proportion as civilization makes
progress. From the sentiment of property, right is born;
from the passions that accompany it are born the means
of acquiring this right and preserving it. There is by no
means need of an agreement for that; the law which estab-
lished it is engraved beforehand in the hearts of all.
I do not mean to say by this, that it could not possibly
happen in the beginning of society that a man deprived of
his bow, for example, would not try to appropriate that of
another; that he would not take away if he could the game

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 Borean Property Rights 59
that the other had hunted, the reindeer that the other had
raised; I only say that in doing this, he would know that he
was acting against a right that he recognized for himself
and that he wished to be respected in him; a right for the
preservation of which he knew in advance that the man whom
he wished to despoil would fight in the same manner as he
himself would fight on a similar occasion. If he had not
known this the social state would not have existed, the bow
would not have been cut, the game would not have been
taken, and the reindeer would not have been tamed. From
this consciousness is born a situation unfortunate for the
refractory, for his strength is diminished all the more as he
feels his wrong, and that of his adversary is augmented all
the more as he feels his right.
Therefore man would choose to make a bow in peace
rather than to steal one all made at the peril of his life. He
would prefer to go hunting or fishing on his own account
rather than to fight constantly, and he would judge rightly
that the least fatigue and the least danger were on the
side of labour. Unless, however, dire necessity urged him
irresistibly to brave death in order to preserve his life, in
that case, he would momentarily re-enter the state of
nature whence he had come and would expose himself to
the danger of losing his l:fe in order to attain the means of
preserving it. Sometimes he would succeed, but more often
he would perish, and his death, which would be known
throughout the tribe, would be a lesson by which the social
state would profit.
Such was the general situation of the Borean Race rela-
tive to the right of property at the epoch of the appearance
of the Sudeens. This appearance and the state of war of
which it was the consequence brought to this right import-
ant changes. At first, the tribes were divided into two
distinct classes and were given several kinds of chiefs. The
division which was made was in the nature of things. For
it is in no wise true as certain political writers, either indiffer-

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6o Hermeneutic Interpretation
ent observers or systematically impassioned, have advanced,
-that all men are born strong and warlike. Men are born
unequal in all ways and more inclined towards certain facul-
ties than towards others. There are the weak and the strong,
the small and the great, the warlike and the pacific, the
indolent and the active. Whereas some love excitement,
noise, dangers, others, on the contrary, seek repose and calm,
and prefer the calling of the shepherd and the farmer to
that of the soldier. The labour of the plough suits them
better than the fatigues of war and the shepherd's crook has
more attractions for them than the lance or the javelin.
Now, the division which was made between them was
not at all arbitrary. It was freely, and by an instinctive
movement, that each took his place. There was not yet
any point of honour which forced men to appear what they
were not, and still less a conscriptive law which ordered them
to follow, in spite of themselves, a calling for which some
would feel an invincible aversion. Thus, as soon as the
herman had announced his intention of forming a class of
men-at-arms destined to fight the enemy, and a class of
labouring men reserved to maintain this class, and to fur-
nish it with all the things which it could not provide for
itself, the formation took place without the least difficulty.
I must say that not any of these men who entered one or the
other of these classes foresaw, the enormous consequences
which his choice could have in the future. How were they
able to foresee that a simple, natural inequality of strength
or inclinations would afterwards be transformed into politi-
cal inequality and would constitute a right? This, however,
was what did happen. This social form, freely consented
and confided to Destiny, had the result that it must neces-
sarily have, and gave birth to the most ancient government
that Europe has known, the feudal government.

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 CHAPTER X

SITUATION OF THE BOREAN RACE AT THE FIRST EPOCH OF

CIVILIZATION

BUTphysical
perhaps the attentive reader will ask me how a simple
inequality can constitute a moral right, and
above all how the choice of parents can bind the children.
For it seems that the first division consisting of two classes
-that of men-at-arms and that of labouring men,-the
children of each remain, in general, in one or the other of these
classes; so that at the end of a certain time, and when the
Celtic nations were definitely constituted, it was found that
those of the first class were superior to the others, and they
enjoyed certain honorary privileges which caused them to
be considered nobles while the others were plebeians. The
reply to this question is so simple that I cannot conceive
how so many of the political writers to whom the question
has been put have not solved it. It is thus: the class of
men-at-arms, by the mere fact of its free formation is found
entrusted not only with its own defence, but also with the
defence of the other class; so that it could not perish unless
the other perished likewise. All the destinies of the Borean
Race rested upon it. If it had been conquered the entire
race would have disappeared. Its triumph assured them
more than its existence ; it assured the existence of all the
race and its perpetuity. The children that were born in
one class as well as in the other were born because it had
61

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
triumphed. Therefore they owed their life to it and this
life could be classed without any injustice, according to the
political inequality in which and by which this life was
favoured to manifest itself. It is thus that this inequality,
first physical and then political, could constitute a legitimate
and moral right, and pass from fathers to children, since with-
out it the fathers would have died or would have been con-
demned to slavery and the children would not have been hom.
The triumph of the Borean Race to which I now give
the name of Celtic was assured by the treaty of peace and of
commerce concerning which I have spoken; but this triumph
which guaranteed its existence was very far from giving it
repose.
Until then, as I have tried to show in the beginning of
the preceding chapter, property had been a fact rather than
a right among the Celts, and it would never have occurred
to any one to dwell upon the fact. But when commerce was
opened with the Sudeens, now known under the name of
Atlanteans, and when exchanges had been made between the
two nations, it happened that the tribes nearest to the fron-
tiers had a greater advantage than the others farther away,
and they found themselves able to make better traffic. On
the other hand, the furs which the Atlanteans desired were
in the hands of tribes most remote in the North, whence
they could be obtained only by making many exchanges.
Relations became complicated, interests were thwarted, and
unequal riches caused envy. These causes of misunder-
standing came to the ears of the Mricans who cleverly pro-
fited by them. These men, far advanced in all physical
and moral sciences, were not ignorant of that of politics; it
is a probability that they put to use their most secret means
in order to foment this misunderstanding which was favour-
able to them. The ferments of discord which they aroused
had all the success that they could have expected. The
Celtic tribes, irritated against each other, ceased to consider
themselves as the inseparable parts of a unique whole, and

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 The Atlanteans
conducted themselves face to face as simple individuals
would have done. Now the only way that these individuals
had known of settling their differences up to that time had
been private combats. There had never been any juris-
prudence other than that of the duel.
The Celts fought for all manner of reasons, for private
interests as well as for general interests. When a tribe had
assembled to elect a herman, the one who presented himself
to fill this military post carried, by the mere fact of presenting
himself, a challenge to all his competitors. If one was found
who was judged more worthy than he to command the others,
he accepted the challenge and the victor was proclaimed.
When these hermans of all the tribes were united to elect
a HerOll, the same method was followed. It was always
the strongest or most fortunate who received this dignity.
If some difference arose among the partisans, the Diet had
no other means of judging it than to order a combat between
the contestants. The one who was declared vanquished was
condemned. The men-at-arms fought with their weapons
and nearly always to the death. The labouring men
fought each other with the cestus or armed only with a club.
The combat was terminated as soon as one of the two was
thrown to the ground.
It is clearly seen that it was Destiny alone that still
dominated this race and that the intellectual sphere was
not open to any moral idea of justice or injustice, of truth
or error. For them justice was triumph and truth the
exercise of force. Force was everything to these instinctive
and impassioned men; it was for them the naked truth as a
man energetically expressed it not long ago.
When in consequence of the change which was made in
the manner of living it was no longer the partisans alone
who had opposed interests, but the numerous tribes who
believed themselves to be wronged by other tribes, they
had no means of terminating the differences that arose
between them other than by invoking the force of arms.

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
War was declared in the same manner and almost in the
same form as one would be challenged to a duel. The
tribes fought often for very frivolous objects, and even for
simple offences. The Atlanteans, witnesses of these bloody
contests, excited them secretly; adroitly making the balance
incline to one side or the other by the secret interventions
they always found means of gaining where their allies lost;
I do not fear to advance the hypothesis too far, in saying
that their political astuteness went so far as to buy as slaves
the prisoners whom the miserable Celts had made from one
another. If this is, as I believe it and as I perhaps might
find it in the written traditions, the fatality of Destiny had
been pushed as far as possible. For, considered from a cer-
tain view-point, death is not so cruel as slavery. And here
is the reason: death only puts man under the power of
Providence which disposes of him according to his nature;
whereas slavery delivers him to Destiny which draws him
into the vortex of necessity.
It is certain that this epoch was most disastrous for the
Celts. Their calamities became aggravated by the faults
which they did not cease to commit and because the perfidious
peace which had been given them, more dangerous than
war itself, would have brought about their downfall, if the
moment indicated by Providence, where their intelligence
was to acquire its first development, had not arrived.
Nevertheless, it is here only a question of that kind of slavery which
results from force of arms and which weighs upon the vanquished enemy.
This slavery, which is purely a fact without being a right, in no way obliges
the slave to remain a slave; for as it is force alone which has made him such,
force can also unmake him. There exists two other kinds of slavery of which
I will speak later: domestic slavery, which was established in the republic,
and feudal serfdom, which had place in the feudal states. The most terrible
of these three conditions of slavery is without doubt domestic slavery, because
it is not only a fact but a right; because it becomes legitimate on account of
the law which establishes it, and because it obliges the slave to remain a slave
by duty and to rivet his own chains by the virtues of the slave with which he
has been inculcated since childhood. Feudal servitude is less rigorous,
because it is based upon an agreement and it can be considered legal rather
than legitimate. I shall explain later what I can only indicate here.

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 CHAPTER XI

FIFTH REVOLUTION-DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN INTELLI

GENCE-<>RIGIN OF THE CULT

BEFORE reading this chapter and above all before

passing any judgment upon the idea which it contains,
I should like the reader to be convinced of a fundamental
truth beyond which are only error and prejudice, namely:
that nothing in elementary nature is formed at once; that
all comes from a principle, of which the developments,
subject to the influence of time, have their beginning, their
middle, and their end.
The most vigorous tree or the most perfect animal
issues from an imperceptible germ; they grow slowly and
attain their relative perfection only after having submitted
to an infinite number of vicissitudes. What happens to
physical man also happens to instinctive, animistic, or intel-
lectual man, and what takes place for the individual also
takes place for the entire race and for Mankind itself which
comprises many races.
We have already seen develop in one of these races,
which I have called the Borean Race, the instinctive and
the animistic sphere, and we have been able to follow
the diverse movements of their respective faculties, as
well as the rapid course which I have adopted would per-
mit. I have not wished to write a voluminous work but
a ,useful one; it is not the number of pages that is of conse-
s 65

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66 Hermeneutic Interpretation
quence, it is the number of thoughts. Now, the develop-
ment of the two inferior spheres, the instinctive and the
animistic, all important as it is, would have remained un-
fruitful, if that of the intellectual sphere had not come in
time to strengthen it. Man, whose needs influence and
whose passions draw him unceasingly on, is far from having
attained the perfection of which he is susceptible. It is
necessary that a purer light than that which is hom of
excitement of the passions should come to his aid, in order
to guide him in the career of life. This light, which springs
from the two great torches of religion and law, can be hom
only after the first perturbation of the intelligence has taken
place. But this perturbation is not such as some men of
more enthusiasm than sagacity imagine; this light does not
appear abruptly in all its splendour; it opens out of twilight
as that of the day, and passes through all the degrees of
dawn and morning before arriving at its midday. Nature,
I repeat in other terms, shows in nothing sudden transi-
tions; she passes from one extreme to the other by almost
imperceptible modifications.
It is not astonishing to see among infant peoples obscure
intellectual notions, superstitious beliefs, cults, and cere-
monies which appear to us sometimes ridiculous, sometimes
atrocious and extraordinary laws, to which one could as-
sign no moral end; all these things depend upon a still dis-
ordered movement of the intellectual sphere and of the
shadowy planes which the providential light is obliged to
cross; these planes more or less dense breaking this light,
refracting it in many ways, often denature it and transform
the most sublime images into frightful phantoms. The
individual imagination of children among the most ad-
vanced nations still offers an accurate picture of the general
imagination of people at the dawn of their civilization.
But a danger presents itself here to the observer and I will
describe it.
In the same way as old people attaining a state of de-

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 The Celts
crepitude have many traits of resemblance with children,
likewise nations in their old age ready to disappear from
the face of the earth are not unlike those who are just com-
mencing their career. To make the distinction between them
is difficult but not impossible. A man accustomed to ob-
servation does not confuse the last days of autumn with the
first days of spring although the temperature may be the
same. He feels in the air a certain tendency which an-
nounces to him in the one the close of life and in the other
its exaltation; thus, although there was much resemblance,
for example, between the cult of the Peruvians and that of
the Chinese, the position of the peoples was far from being
the same.
The Celts, at the epoch in which I examine them, were
not far from the age of the Peruvians when these were dis-
covered and destroyed by the Spaniards; but they had over
them incalculable advantages, that is, the physical part in
them was completely developed before the intellectual had
begun its work; they were strong and robust, and their pas-
sions were already aroused when the Mricans encountered
them. Their bodies hardened by the bitterness of the
climate, their wandering life, the absence of all civil and
religious obstacles, gave them the advantage of which I
have already spoken. Among the Peruvians, on the con-
trary, the intellectual development had been precocious,
and the physical development had been tardy and stifled.
I have reason to believe that among this last people the
disturbance of the intellectual sphere had occurred too soon,
in consequence of an accident. It is probable. that some
Chinese navigators driven by a tempest, having landed
among certain people of the bay of Panama, undertook their
civilization, and succeeded in carrying it very far in many
respects. Unfortunately they acted like imprudent pre-
ceptors who, to make a pupil shine for a moment, render
him an idiot for the rest of his life. With the exception of
morals and politics, the Peruvians had made very little

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68 Hermeneutic Interpretation
progress in the other sciences. They were fruits of a hot-
house, brilliant to look upon, but to the taste flaccid and
without savour. While comedies and tragedies were repre-
sented at Cuzco, magnificent fates celebrated there, they
were ignorant of the art of war, of which they had had but
one experience in a civil dissension of short duration. A
few avaricious brigands, armed with ruse and ferocity,
sufficed to annihilate this people too early occupied with
things beyond their comprehension. The Celts, Jil,ore
fortunate, had resisted entire nations, warlike and powerful,
by the sole opposition of their instinctive strength. Their
ideas were developed slowly and consistently. At present
their too much excited passions placed them in danger;
their superabundant strength was turned against themselves.
It was necessary to place a restraint upon them. This was
the work of Providence.
Again this time the movement impressed upon the minds
of the women began to manifest itself. Weaker, and there-
fore more accessible than the men to all impressions, it is
always they who take the first steps in the course of civili-
zation. Fortunate if, to profit honourably by it, they knew
how to mingle their own interest in the general interest;
but it is this that rarely happens.
War was kindled between two tribes, and the two her-
mans, violently angry, at the head of their men-at-arms,
challenged each other; they were about to settle their differ-
ences by a single combat. Already the weapons gleamed
in their hands, when suddenly a woman all dishevelled threw
herself between them at the risk of her life. She cried for
them to stop, to stay their blows, and to hear her. Her
action, her tone, the ardour of her eyes astonished them.
She was the wife of one and sister of the other. They
stopped; they listened. Her voice had something super-
natural which moved them notwithstanding their anger.
She told them that, while overpowered with grief in her
wagon, she felt herself about to swoon without however

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 Oracle of Voluspa, the Druidess 6g

entirely losing consciousness and that then being called by

a loud voice, she had raised her eyes and had seen before
her a warrior of colossal stature, all resplendent with light
who had said to her: "Descend, Voluspa, gather up thy
robe and hasten to the place where thy spouse and thy
brother are about to shed Borean blood. Tell them that I,
the first Herman, the first Hero of their race, the Vanquisher
of the Black People, have descended from the palace of
clouds, where resides my Soul, to order them by thy voice
to cease from this fratricidal combat. It is a ruse of the
Black People which divides them. They are there hidden
in the denseness of the forest. They await until death shall
have destroyed the most valiant, to fall upon the rest and
enrich themselves with their spoils. Dost thou not hear
the cries of victory which they already shout at the feet of
their idol? Go! lose no time. Surprise them in the intoxi-
cation of their ferocious joy and strike them with death.
My soul will tremble with joy at the sound of thy exploits.
Carried on thy steps by the breath of the storm, I shall feel
myself wielding again the strong lance and bathing it in the
blood of the enemy."
This discourse uttered with a vehement voice easily
opens the way to their soul; it penetrates and causes an
emotion hitherto unknown. The sensation that they ex-
perience is impetuous and sudden; they do not doubt the
veracity of Voluspa.' They believe her; all is accomplished.
Sentiment is transformed into assent and admiration takes
the place of esteem. The intellectual sphere is stirred for
the first time, and imagination establishes its empire there.
Without taking time to reflect, the two warriors clasp
hands. They swear to obey the first Herman, that Herman
whose memory has been perpetuated from age to age as a
model to heroes. They do not doubt at all that he exists
still in the clouds. Neither the principle nor the mode nor
the aim of this existence disturbs them. There they add
Voluspa signifies one who sees the universality of things.

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
faith by an intuitive emotion which is already the first
of the reaction of their admiration for warlike valour, their
favourite passion.
With all haste they harangue their men-at-arms. They
inform them of the event that has just taken place. The
men are impressed; their enthusiasm is passed from one to
another. No one doubts that the first Herman may, though
invisible, be at the head of their battalions. They call him
their Heroll and this name which remains consecrated to
him alone becomes their war-cry. They reach the camp of
the Africans. They find them in the attitude that the pro-
phetess has indicated, awaiting the issue of the combat of
the two tribes to profit by it. The tribes precipitate them-
selves upon their enemies and massacre them. The hastiest
flight can scarcely save from death a small number who go
spreading terror afar.
Meanwhile the Celts return triumphant. At their head
was the same woman whose inspired voice had prepared their
triumph. In passing through the forest she is obliged by
fatigue to rest at the foot of an oak. After a few moments
the tree appears in the midst of a great calm to agitate its
mysterious foliage. Voluspa herself seized with an inexpres-
sible excitement stands up crying that she feels the spirit
of Herman. They assemble about her, they listen. She
speaks with a force that impresses even the most savage
men. In spite of themselves they feel their knees give way;
they bow down with respect. A holy terror penetrates
them. They are religious for the first time. The prophetess
continues. The future unrolls itself before her eyes. She
sees the Celts, vanquishers of their enemies, usurping all the
kingdoms of the earth, dividing the riches, and trampling

I have already said that this name with the guttural inflection became
that of Hercules. It is by the suppression of the first syllable that R8ll or
Raoul results. By adding to it the word land, borrowed from the Atlanteans
to signify an extent of ground, is formed Herolland, Orland, or Roland, that is
to say the master of all the earth.

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 Herman-SayI 71
under foot these Black People of whom they had long been
the slaves. "Go," she said at last, "valiant heroes, march
to your glorious destinies, but forget not Herman, chief of
men, and above all respect Teut-tad, the Sublime Father!"'
Such was the first oracle pronounced among the Boreans
and such was the first religious impression which they re-
ceived. This oracle was pronounced by a woman beneath
an oak in a forest and this tree became sacred to them and
the forest served as their temple. From this moment women
took a divine character in their eyes. This woman was the
model of all the pythonesses and all the prophetesses which
became known in the course of time in Europe as well as in
Asia. At first they prophesied beneath the oaks, and it
was this which rendered so famous the oaks of the forest of
Dodona.
When the Celts had become masters of the world, and
had acquired from the conquered nations the taste for arts
and for magnificence, they raised for their pythonesses superb
temples, where the symbolic tripod placed over an aperture,
real or artificial, was substituted for the oak and caused it
to be forgotten.
But long before this epoch the Borean tribes thought
only of consecrating the place where the first oracle had been
uttered. They raised an altar after the model of those which
they had seen among the Atlanteans, and, placing above it
a lance or a sword, dedicated it to the first Herman, under
the name of Herman-Sayl. 2
I translate Teut-tad as Sublime Father, but it can also signify infinite,
uni!Jersal Father. The Greeks and Latins changed this name to that of
Teutates. From the word Teut-&k which signifies the people of Teut the
French have made Tudesque; of Teut Sohn, the son of Teut, Teuton. The
Germans still call their country Deutschland, that is to say, the land of Teut.
2 1 have already explained this word; it signifies literally the Pillar of Herman.

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 CHAPTER XII

RECAPITULATION

I N the first book I have made known the principal object of

this work, and, taking Man at the moment of his appear-
ance upon the stage of the world, still reduced to the most
simple perceptions of instinct, a stranger to all kinds of
civilization, I have brought him by the development of the
principal faculties of his soul to the threshold of the social
edifice, to that age which has been inappropriately called
the Golden Age; after having destroyed this error and con-
tested several false theories attached to it, I herewith continue
my course.
Established in families, possessor of an articulate lan-
guage, Man had reached a point where are found even in
our day a great many of his fellow creatures. He did not
yet know laws, government, or religion. I have been obliged
to lead him to the consciousness of these important objects,
and to show that only by their means could he become moral,
powerful, and virtuous, make himself worthy of his high
destinies, and attain the end for which he has been created.
I have chosen for this the historical form so as to evade
either dryness of citations or tediousness of abstract reason-
ings. I hope that the reader will pardon me this boldness.
I beg him to believe, although he may take this beginning
of history as an hypothesis, that it is really an hypothesis
only in relation to details. It would not be at all difficult
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 Political and Moral Rights 73
for me, if the case required, to prove the substance by a
great number of authorities, and even to give the secular
date for the principal events. But this would be quite
useless for the object of this work.
First, I have presented the Will of Man, still feeble,
struggling against itself, and afterwards, stronger, having
to resist the power of Destiny. I have shown that the results
of this struggle and this resistance have been the develop-
ment of the two inferior spheres, the instinctive and the
animistic, from which development depended a great number
of his faculties.
I have attached to this same development the principle
of political right, and I have shown that this principle which
is Property is a need as inherent in man as that of possession,
without which he could neither live nor propagate.
After having proved that property is a need, I have
made clear that the inequality of strength, given by nature
to satisfy this need by establishing a physical inequality
among men, determines necessarily there the inequality
of conditions, which constitutes a moral right and which
passes legitimately from fathers to children.
Now from the political right, which is property, and from
the moral right, which is the inequality of conditions, result
the laws and diverse forms of diverse governments.
But, before distinguishing any of these forms by its
constitutive principle, I have wished to arrive at the de-
velopment of the intellectual sphere, so as to conduct man
as far as the threshold of the temple of the Divinity. There
I have stopped a moment; content with having sketched
so vast a subject and having indicated in passing a multi-
tude of things whose origin has been until now little known.

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 SECOND BOOK

The principal object of this book will be to describe the

effects of the first disturbance given to the intellectual
sphere, and to conduct Man as far as the entire development
of his faculties.

15

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 CHAPTER I

FIRST FORMS OF WORSHIP-CREATION OF PRIESTHOOD AND

OF ROYALTY

T HE providential event which manifested itself among

the Celts revealed to their meditations two great
truths-the immortality of the soul, and the existence of
God. The first of these truths took hold of them more
than the second. They understood well enough how the
invisible part of themselves which felt, became animated,
thought, and finally willed, could survive the destruction
of the body, since it could even watch while the body slept,
and could offer in its dreams pictures more or less filled with
sensations, passions, thoughts, and pleasures whose actual
effect no longer existed; but they could with difficulty com-
prehend the idea of a universal Being, Creator, and Preserver
of all beings. Their feeble intelligence had still need of
something perceptible upon which it might support itself.
The power of abstraction and of generalization was not
strong enough to sustain them at this metaphysical height.
It is not that they did not admit the name of Sublime Father
that Voluspa had given to this unknown Being for whom
she had commanded respect; but this very name of Father,
instead of raising them to Him, persuaded them rather to
make Him descend to them, in presenting this Being to them
only as the first Father of the Borean Race and the most
ancient of their ancestors. As to the first Herman he was
77

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
clearly revealed to them. They saw him such as memory
bad preserved in the traditions-terrible, indomitable in
combat, their support, their counsel, their guide, and above
all the implacable enemy of the Black People.
So that one can surmise, without fear of erring much,
that the first worship of the Celts was that of the ancestors
or rather that of the divine human Soul, such as it exists
from time immemorial in China and among the greatest
number of Tartar people. The Lamaic cult, whose antiquity
yields only to Sabeanism, is the same cult as the ancestors
perfected, as I will show further on.
The first effect of this worship, whose establishment
was owing to the inspiration of a woman, was to change
suddenly and completely the fate of women. As much as
they were humiliated on account of their weakness, so much
were they exalted on account of the new and marvellous
faculty which was discovered in them; from the lowest
place which they held in society, they passed all at once to
the highest. They were declared law-makers; they were
regarded as interpreters of heaven; their orders were received
as oracles. Invested with supreme sacerdotal power, they
exercised the first theocracy that may have existed among
the Celts. A college of women was intrusted to regulate
all in the cult and in the government.
This college, however, whose laws were all received as
divine inspirations, was not long in perceiving that to make
them understood and executed, it was necessary to have two
coercive bodies possessing knowledge and power with the
right of reward and punishment both moral and civil. The
voice of Voluspa made itself understood, and the college
named a sovereign pontiff on the one hand under the name
of Drud or Druid and a king on the other, under the name
of Kanh, Kong, or King. These two supreme magistrates
The word Drud signifies the radical instruction, the principle of science.
It comes from the word rad or rud, which means a root. Thence the Latin
radix, the English root, the Gallic 'redham, etc. The word kaflh expresses

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 Sacerdotal College of Women 79

regarded themselves justly as delegates of heaven, ap-

pointed to instruct and to govern men, and in consequence
were entitled pontiff or king, by divine right. The Drud
was the chief of the Diet in which he formed a sacerdotal
body, and the Kanh established himself in a ~ike manner
at the head of the Leyts and the Folks or men-at-arms and
labouring men among whom he chose officers who were to
act in his name.
He was not, however, at first confused with the herman,
who was always elected by his peers after the trial of combat,
and carried upon a shield according to the ancient custom;
but this military chief ceased to bear the name of Herman,
in order to leave it wholly to the first divine Herman, and
contented himself with the name of Mayer, that is to say,
the strongest or the most valiant. 1
It is well known that violent rivalries were raised in the
course of time between the kanh and the mayer, or the king
vested with civil power reigning by divine right and the
mayor possessor of the military force and commanding the
men-at-arms by right of election; often the king had united
in him the two functions and more often still the mayor had
deprived the king of his crown which he had placed upon his
own head. But these details, which properly speaking
belong to history, do not belong to my subject. I shall be
content to reveal the origins later so as to draw inductions
relative to the important matter with which I am occupied.

the moral power. It belongs to the root anh, which develops the sense
of breath, of spirit, of soul; thence in Teutonic konnen and in English
can.
' The word mayer comes from mall or moh, motive force. They say in
English may, in German millie. In French the word is changed from Mayer
to that of Maire.
Thus by the word Drud the Celts understood a radical Principle, a guiding
Power, upon which depend all other powers. They attached to the word
Kanh the idea of moral force and to the word Mayer that of physical force.
The Drud was then among them the head of the religious doctrine; the Kanh
the civil legislator, the high judiciary, and the Mayer the military chief.

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 CHAPTER II

SIXTH REVOLUTION-POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS SCHISM-

ORIGIN OF THE CELTS, BEDOUINS OR NOMADS,
AND THE AMAZONS

L ET us retrace our steps for a moment. We have seen

that, after the development of his instinct, Man lived
in absolute anarchy; he had not even that sort of instinctive
government that is observed in several species of animals,
and this for the very reason I have shown when speaking of
marriage. Nothing was made in advance with him, al-
though everything was determined there in principle. Pro-
vidence, whose work he was, willed that he should develop
himself freely and that nothing should be forced in him.
This absolute anarchy ceased as soon as he had reflected
upon his condition, and as soon as his marriage, the result
of this reflection, had constituted a family. Several fami-
lies, drawing together, formed a sort of domestic govern-
ment of which the feminine will usurped little by little the
exclusive dominion. We have seen how Destiny broke
this unnatural government by the sudden opposition of the
Will of Man. Woman, until this time mistress, became slave;
all the burden of society fell upon her; a sort of masculine
tyranny took place. The people obeying were composed
of mothers and daughters; the people commanding, the
heads of families, of which each was a despot in his own
hut. It was a kingdom of the instinctive force alone.
8o

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 Many Refuse to Believe Oracle 81

An event which Providence and Destiny brought about

jointly in opposing the animistic force to the instinctive
modified this state of things. The Borean Race, suddenly
attacked by a powerful and warlike race, was obliged to
search outside of instinct a means of resistance; their ani-
mistic faculties keenly excited by danger were developed;
the necessity of self-defence together with that of procuring
food suggested the happy idea of dividing themselves into
two classes: the one destined to fight and the other to work;
the strongest were chosen to guide the combatants and the
wisest to watch the labourers. Special chiefs were created,
all dependent on a general chief; a Diet was established.
This was a military government where the principles of
feudalism were found united to those of imperial rule.
At first, the Will acted in the instinct, afterward it
operated in the understanding, now it is about to be placed
in the intelligence. But the same danger which had already
presented itself at the epoch of the development of the
instinct presents itself anew under other forms and menaces
the social structure with an even greater disturbance.
As it is by woman that the movement has begun, is it
not to be feared that, drawn on by her character, seduced
by interest or by vanity, she only seeks to turn to her sole
profit an event which Providence has destined for the gen-
eral advancement of the race? Heaven has spoken through
her voice, but is it true that it will always? And when it
no longer speaks will she not make it speak? Although
these considerations did not generally strike the minds of
the Celts, they were sufficiently valued by some among
them to raise great difficulties. All had not been witnesses
to the first movement of Voluspa; the greater number had
not heard her oracle; many refused to believe it; those who
did judged it extraordinary that any one could doubt a
thing which they had affirmed as truth. None of these
knew that this effect is produced from the essence of prov-
idential events. They had wondered at a thing which
6

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82 Hermeneutic Interpretation
constitutes the most excellent concomitant of Man; if Prov-
idence had drawn him into an irresistible movement, it would
not differ from Destiny and the same necessity would direct
them equally. The Will of Man, forced in all directions,
would have no other choice to make, and its actions, indiffer-
ent in respect to him, would be susceptible neither to praise
nor censure. The mental liberty that an event allows
proves whether it is providential or not. The more it is
elevated the more it is free; the more it is forced, the more
it inclines toward the fatality of Destiny.
The mental liberty, inherent in providential events, was
felt here for the first time and felt with force. The Celts
saw with astonishment, perhaps, but they saw at last that
it was possible that they should not think the same thing
on the same matters. Whereas the greater number of
tribes received with respect the order of the feminine college
and submitted without any resistance to the sovereign pontiff
and to the king that it had nominated; whereas the sacer-
dotal teachings and the civil and military government
spread in their midst and threw out deep roots; whereas at
last the oracles of Voluspa were received there as sacred
laws, there were other tribes that, holding with obstinacy
to their ancient forms, rejected all innovations. That which
shocked them the most, and to which it seemed that the
feminine college held with utmost force, on account perhaps
of a little private interest which began to mingle with the
general interest, was the fixing of abodes and the circum-
scription of families; and this tended to establish territorial
property, which up to that time had been unknown. This
innovation was apparent pretext for the schism which oc-
curred; it was violent; both sides came to blows; but as the
dissenters were a very weak majority in comparison to those
who directly wished the innovations or who received them
without debate, they saw themselves obliged to submit or to
retire. They preferred this last expedient, and marching
ever onward from the north to the south of Europe they

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 Dissenting Celts Become Bedouins 83

arrived on the shores of that sea which has since been aptly
called the Black Sea, although this name belonged formerly
to all the extent of waters in general which bathed the south
of Europe, on account of the Black People who possessed it;
as by a contrary reason, that part of the ocean which sur-
rounds Europe and Asia on the side of the Boreal pole is
called the White Sea.
Having come to the shores of this interior sea, the dis-
senting Celts skirted it to the east and penetrated to that
part of Asia which bears the name of Asia Minor. The
weak colonies which the Sudeens had pushed thus far were
easily overthrown. The conquerors encouraged by the
first success advanced rapidly, increasing their spoils and
the number of their slaves, and soon it was rumoured that
a deluge of Scythians was inundating the septentrional
countries of Asia. The efforts made to arrest the torrent
only tended to increase its impetuosity, and gave further
opportunity for depredations. The Celts finding it impos-
sible to retreat were obliged to advance or perish. They
advanced.
Owing to the reasons which had forced them to abandon
their fatherland they were given the name of Bodohnes, 1
that is to say, without fixed habitations, and this name,
which exists still in that of the Bedouins, has been famous.
After many vicissitudes, upon which it is altogether useless
for me to dwell, these Bodohnes Celts, having become
masters of the borders of the Euphrates so celebrated_later,
conquered Arabia, where the greater part finally settled,
after having assumed many of the customs and habits of
the people whom they had subjugated, and having adopted
It is remarkable that this name, Celtic and Phoonician alike, is still
perfectly intelligible in German and Hebrew. The Celtic root bod or bed signi-
fies properly a bed, and the same Phoonician root beth or beyth signifies a habi-
tation. The root ohn, preserved in German, and ain or oin, which is found in
Hebrew, expresses an absence, a negation. The French verb lu!.biler is derived
from the first root, bed or beyth, as is the Saxon abidan and the English to
abide, abode, etc.

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
their laws and their cults. The Arabs issued from this
fusion of Borean and Sudeen blood. All the cosmogonies
where woman is presented as the cause of evil and the fecund
source of all the misfortunes which have affiicted the earth
have come from there. Even in the time of Mohammed,
woman was considered as impure by the people of Yemen
who, as their prophet reproaches them for it in the Koran,
wept at the birth of daughters and often buried them alive.
I do not wish to leave these Celtic dissenters, whose lot
became afterward so brilliant, since it was from them that
the Assyrians and Arabs had their origin, without relating
a fact whose singularity has greatly embarrassed the savants
of all ages. This fact is relative to the Amazons. I shall
guard against details of endless controversies caused by the
existence of this people of warrior-women. All that has
been said either or or against proves that such a people
has indeed existed; at first in Asia near Thermodon and
afterwards in some of the islands of the Mediterranean and
even in Europe. The Hindus who have preserved a memory
of them call the country of the Amazons Stri-radjya and
place them near the mountains of Coulas on the borders of
the sea. Zoroaster said in the Boun-dehesh that they in-
habited the city of Salem. Pausanias speaks of their inva-
sion of Greece and of their fighting to the very walls of
Athens. Apollonius relates in his Argonauts that they
dwelt in the island of Lemnos and on the mainland near Cape
Themiscure. What appears most probable is that these
extraordinary women first existed in Asia Minor. No doubt
some hordes of Bodohnes, having advanced without pre-
caution, fell into an ambuscade where the men were cut
to pieces. The women having had time to seek a shelter,
whether on the other side of a river or on some island, seeing
themselves stronger, thanks to this event, resolved to profit
by it and seize the dominion. Among them probably was
a woman of firm and decided character, who inspired them
with the plan and placed herself at their head. According

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 The Amazons ss
to tradition they massacred the old men who had remained
with them and even some men who had escaped from the
enemy. However that may be, it appears certain that
they formed a monarchical government which was main-
tained for a considerable time, since the names of several of
their queens have come down to us. The historians are
not agreed upon the manner by which they admitted men
among them; all that can be inferred as true is that they
reduced to slavery those whom they made prisoners and
that they gave to those who were born of their transient
union an education conforming to their views.
Moreover the name of the Amazons, under which
antiquity has made us know these warrior-women, proves
at the same time their Celtic origin and their abode in
Asia by its composition. 1 It signifies properly those who
have no males or husbands.
One feels indeed, without weighing the subject further,
that if such women existed, it must have been excessive mis-
fortune that changed their nature and drove them to this
acto despair. Now, in the position that I have represented
the women of the Bodohnes Celts, their misfortune must
have been excessive since it was the result of a schism both
political and religious. Their husbands, unheedful of the
voice of Providence which called them to gentler manners
by laying without reason a heavy arm of iron upon a sex
already too much punished for its faults, del vered to Destiny
the germs of calamity, which could not fail to produce fatal
fruits, as soon as occasion favoured the development.
1 This word is composed of the root m4s preserved purely in Latin and

recognizable in the old French masle, in the Italian maschio, in the Irish moth,
etc.; this root joined to the negation ohne constitutes the word m4s-ohne,
to which adding the Phamician article ha, in ha-m4s-ohne, offers exactly the
sense I have indicated.

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 CHAPTER III

FIRST GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISION OF EUROPE

W HILE these events were occurring in Asia, the Celts

having remained in Europe continued to follow there
the movement impressed by Providence. A royal and theo-
cratic government was established and promised the most
favourable results. Already a considerable number of
Druids instructed by the care of the sovereign pontiff,
called Drud, spread in all directions and added to the two
classes already existing among the Boreans, a class emi-
nently useful since it tended to maintain harmony between
the two others in preventing oppression on the one side
and revolt on the other. This class composed of men called
Lcehr, that is to say, the enlightened ones or the savants,
has become among us today the clergy. Even more an-
ciently, at the time when theocracy dominated Europe, and
in the absence even of royalty, the theocratic sovereigns,
whose principal seats were in Thrace, in Etruria, and in the
Britannic isles, took the title of Lar.
Thus the Borean Race was divided into three classes,
and what is worthy of the greatest attention is that each
class represented one of the three constitutive spheres of
Man and followed its development, so that the sphere of
Folk or labouring men was analogous to the instinctive
The Greek word ~r).iipos which makes destiny out of anything whatever;
among the Latins lares and in modem English, lords.
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 The Borean Empire
sphere, that of Leyt or men-at-arms, to the animistic, and
that of l4hr or enlightened men, to the intellectual. This
progress although disturbed by occasional shocks was
admirable till then.
As the whole of the Celtic nation tended to settle itself,
the division of lands had to be considered, but, before com-
ing to the decisive point, it was necessary first to understand
and to establish boundaries. From the providential event
which I have related, war was rekindled more actively than
ever between the White and the Black races. The Celts,
penetrated with a religious and warlike enthusiasm, showed
prodigious valour. The Atlanteans, pressed on all sides,
could no longer hold the field against them. Time had
effaced the differences which had previously existed. Arms
had become nearly equal, and the Celts, now instructed in
military tactics, found in their physical force an advantage
more and more noticeable. All the interior o~ the country
was already swept. The Sudeens, relegated to the meridional
extremities of Europe on the shores of the sea, could only
maintain themselves under cover of their fortified cities which
the Celts were incapable of besieging and which, furthermore,
a powerful marine force rendered impregnable to famine.
The possession of Europe was thus assured to them with
the exception of the meridional coasts; the Druids divided
the interior into three great regions. The central region
was called Teuts-land, that is to say, the land elevated, sub-
lime, or the land of the Teut; that of the Occident received
the name of Hal-land or GMl-land, the land inferior; that
of the Orient took that of Pal-land, the land superior. The
countries placed to the north of these three regions were
called D'ahn-mark, the limit of souls, and those of the south,
still occupied by the Atlanteans from the Tanais to the
Pillars of Hercules, were known under the generic name of
d'Asks-tan, the dwelling of the Asks or Black Peoples.'
' The word ask sometimes written with a c, sometimes with a q, sometimes
varying the vowel, is found in a multitude of names of peoples in these lati-

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88 Hermeneutic Interpretation
This geographical division, although altered by a multitude
of subdivisions, has survived all the political and religious
revolutions, and is still recognized in our day in its principal
points. As to the immense countries which extended beyond
the Borysthenes, regarded as the limit of the Borean Empire, 1
as its name indicates sufficiently, it was believed to be abso-
lutely deprived of people, and to be inhabited only by savage
animals among which the horse was the most esteemed.
It was also on account of this warlike animal that the name
of Rossland, the land of horses, was given to these countries. 3
In believing the countries situated beyond the Borys-
thenes and the Duna entirely uninhabited, the Celts were
greatly deceived. This erroneous opinion showed only
that they had lost sight of the place of their origin and that
they no longer remembered that they were themselves
descended from these glacial regions. Whereas they had
made enormous steps in civilization and whereas ready to
march to the conquest of the world, they already constituted
a numerous and powerful nation; unknown tribes hardly
passed over the first limits of the social state had formed in
silence, increased in number, and awaited only a favourable
moment in order to descend in their tum from the boreal
heights and enter a milder climate to demand from them a
share of it.

tudes, the Thraskes, Osques, Esqrus, Tos~ or Toscans, Etrus~, Baskes

or Wasqrus, or Vascons or Gascons, etc. I have written at length my ideas
on all these people in my Grammaire de Ia Langru d'Oc. By Traskes we under-
stand Oriental Asks, by Tos~ meridional Asks, and by Vas~ Occidental
Asks. The name Pelasges or Pelasks designated the Black People in general
and the seafaring ones in particular. The name d'Asks-lan is preserved in
those of Oscitania and Aquitania.
The name of this river is composed of the words Bors-stein, the limit of
Bor.
The word Ross signifies still a horse in German, the French word rosse
is a corruption.

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 CHAPTER IV

CONCERNING THE FIRST DIVISION OF LANDS AND TERRITORIAL

PROPERTY

IN oftheVoluspa
meantime, the Druids, always obedient to the oracles
and subject to the decrees of the Sacred
College, continued their division. They gave to the men-
at-arms general property of a vast extent of land, and to the
labouring men private property of a small extent within
the greater. So what was possessed by ten or a hundred
families of Folk belonged as a whole to a family of the Leyt
who, without being obliged to till the soil or to be occupied
in any other calling than that of men-at-arms, enjoyed a
certain part of the revenues, labour, and industries of the
small landowners charged with turning to account the
great estate.
As several small estates formed a great one, several
great ones fonned a greater, and these, being united, con-
stituted another still greater, so that, if the first man-at-arms
who ruled over certain labouring men assumed the title of
baron, the second took that of great baron, and the third
that of very great baron.
The king had dominion over all the barons, and enjoyed
the honorary right of the universal estate; that is to say,
that all the lands were reputed to belong to him and the
great and small landowners recognized that their respective
rights depended upon him. All unoccupied lands belonged
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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
to him; he gave them to new families, according as they
were formed, and likewise he disposed of domains vacant
through the extinction of old families. Besides that, he
possessed as his own a very extended domain whose revenues
were set apart for the crown.
It appears that, in the beginning of this legislation, the
Druids had no other estates than those of the sanctuaries
where they dwelt with their wives and children. Their
principal revenue consisted in a sort of tithe levied upon all
the wealth of the State, but the gifts which they received
in the course of time made them proprietors of a great
quantity of lands attached to these same sanctuaries, and
put into their hands immense treasures.
Mter this rapid sketch, it can be seen that the territorial
landowners were at first of a triple nature, as it were,
instinctive, animistic, and intellectual. Those who imagine
that it sufficed for a man first to enclose a space of land and
then to say "this is mine," in order to possess it, commit the
greatest blunder. The real possession of man, his instinctive
possession, does not go beyond his efforts. The earth
belongs to all or it belongs to no one. A providential con-
cession is necessary to assure the ownership of property,
and this concession can only be the effect of a theocratic
legislation. Providence does not manifest itself immediately
and does not come in person to dictate its laws to man; it
has always need of a human organ to make its wishes under-
stood. It is only when this organ is found that theocratic
legislation commences.
This legislation, as I have said, had begun among the
Celts at the epoch determined for this. It had added to
force the only power which then existed: two other powers
destined to serve as a mutual support-the civil law and
the religious law. The military chief who up to that time
had been in the first rank had to yield his place to two new
chiefs appointed to be his superiors-the king and the
sovereign pontiff. The king, by the sole fact of his corona-

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 Industrial and Territorial Rights 91

tion, had been declared the temporal representative of

Providence, and consequently the universal proprietor of
the earth. He could then, as universal proprietor, create
general proprietors, and these general proprietors could in
their turn establish particular proprietors. This was pre-
cisely what was done. But as Providence, represented
temporarily by the king, preserved nevertheless its spiritual
action, with which the sovereign pontiff was invested, it
followed that the king owed homage for his universal pro-
perty to this sovereign pontiff through whom his right had
been promulgated, and the latter justly claimed for himself,
as well as for the sacerdotal body, a legal portion of all the
products.
If one will give attention to the laws, and above all to
the customs which are attached to the right of territorial
property, notwithstanding the infinite number of revolu-
tions of which Europe has been the theatre, it will be seen
that they all tend to prove what I advance, to wit-that
this right has been originally only a concession.
What I say here regarding territorial property must not,
however, be confused with what I have said elsewhere of
industrial property. These two ownerships do not at all
resemble each other by right. Industrial ownership con-
stitutes a natural right inherent in man, a need from which
the social state draws its principle; whereas the territorial
ownership is based on the contrary, upon an unnatural
concession, foreign to man, which did not take place until
a long time after the social state was constituted. There is
no need of any law, as I have said, to establish the right of
industrial ownership, because each feels instinctively that
the product of man's work belongs to him just as does his
body; but it is only in consequence of a law, and of a strong
one, that the right of territorial property can be admitted;
because instinct rejects the existence of such a right, and it
would never take place if the intelligence in which it has
its principle had not sanctioned it. Thus, one sees impas-

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92 Hermeneutic Interpretation
sioned men, whose will is placed in the instinct, violently
objecting to the exclusive possession of lands, and ever
demanding why a great portion of the people is disinherited.
The only answer to make to these men is: because Pro-
vidence has willed it. Now without presuming audaciously
to interpret the ways of Providence, the motives of such a
will can be easily explained. These motives are evidently
to give to the social edifice an elevation and a splendour
which otherwise it might never have obtained.

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 CHAPTER V

ORIGIN OF MUSIC AND POETRY-INVENTION OF OTHER

SCIENCES

A BOUT this epoch, and perhaps a little earlier, several

things came to pass which influenced in a perceptible
manner the civilization of the Celts.
The Druids, in listening to the oracles of Voluspa, per-
ceived that these oracles were always contained in measured
phrases of regular form, drawing with them a certain har-
mony which varied according to the subject so that the
tone with which the prophetess pronounced her sentences
differed much from the ordinary language. They examined
attentively this singularity, and, after becoming accustomed
to imitate the diverse intonations which they heard, they
succeeded in reproducing them, and saw that they were
harmoniously adjusted according to fixed rules. These
rules, reduced to a system by dint of hard work, gave them
the principles of two of the most beautiful conceptions with
which men have been able to honour themselves-music
and poetry. Such was the origin of melody and rhythm.
Until then, the Celts had been little affected by music.
That of the Atlanteans, which they had heard in combats or
in ceremonies, seemed to them only noise more or less loud,
shrill, or low. Seeking to outstrip their enemies they had
duly invented instruments warlike and monotonous, such as
drums, the cymbal, the hom, and the bucine, by means of
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94 Hermeneutic Interpretation
which they indeed filled the air with noises or formidable
sounds but without any melody. It was not until their
priests had received from Voluspa the principles of musical
and poetical harmony that they began to find any charm in
it. The flute, whose inventor was a favoured genius, caused
a revolution in the ideas. They saw with inexpressible
rapture that they could follow with this instrument the
voice of Voluspa and, as it were, recall her words by the
sole repetition of the sounds which she had attached to them.
The repetition of these sounds constituted the poetic rhythm.
This rhythm, presented to the nation as a gift from heaven,
was received by it with an enthusiasm difficult to express.
It was learned by heart, chanted on all occasions, inculcated
at an early age in the minds of the children; so that in a very
short time it became instinctive, and by means of it one was
able to spread with the greatest facility the text of all the
oracles or all the laws which Voluspa always uttered in the
same measure. Such was the reason for which in antiquity,
music and poetry were never separated and were likewise
called the language of the gods.
Notwithstanding the pleasure that I would take in ex-
patiating upon subjects so pleasing, and towards which my
particular tastes have often drawn me, I can here merely
touch upon them lest I retard too much my progress; and,
moreover, I have in other works written at greater length
upon them. 1
The invention of music and poetry in electrifying the
minds gave rise to observations, researches, and meditations
whose results were most useful. For the first time this
brilliant phenomenon of speech, to which as yet no attention
had been given, was examined. The Druids, whom Voluspa
had made musicians and poets, became grammarians.
They examined the language which they spoke, and dis-
1 Principally in my Exa~ns sur les V ers doris de Pylhagore succeeding my

Discours sur l'Essence et la forme de la Poesie, in my Considbalions sur le

Rhyme, and finally in my work on La Musique.

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 Origin of Grammar 95
covered with surprise that it was supported by fixed prin-
ciples. They distinguished the substantive from the verb
and found the relation of number and gender. Drawn on by
the spirit of their cult, they pronounced the feminine gender
the first, and thus they stamped the Borean language with an
indelible character, a character entirely opposed to that of
the Sudeen language. Having to design, for example, ob-
jects whose gender exists only in forms of language, they
applied the feminine or masculine gender in a manner
opposed to the unvarying opinion of the Kingdom of Man,
attributing feminine gender to the sun and masculine to the
moon, thus placing themselves in contradiction with the
nature of things. 1
This mistake, which was one of the first where the animis-
tic vanity of the woman involved the spirit of the prophetess,
was unfortunately neither the last nor the greatest. I shall
mention presently the most terrible of all, the one which
again nearly ruined the entire race. I wish beforehand to
say a word upon the invention of writing which coincided
with that of grammar.
The Celts, as I have said, had acquired by association
with the Atlanteans a vague knowledge of writing, but their
mind, not well developed, had not felt all the usefulness of so
admirable an art and was but slightly concerned with it.
It was only when the Druids came to reflect upon their
original tongue that they felt the necessity of fixing by
writing its fluctuating forms. The greatest difficulty in this
art is the conception of the first idea; once this idea is con-
ceived and the metaphysical object grasped by the mind, the
rest has nothing perplexing.
It would be presumption to say at this time, that the first
1 This contradiction has disappeared in a great many of the Celtic dialects,

on account of the ascendancy of the Atlantean dialects with which they are
mingled, but in the centre of Europe the German dialect has preserved this
singularity. In this dialect the sun, die Sonne; air, die Luft; time, die Zeit;
love, die Liebe, etc., are of feminine gender, and the moon, der Mond; death
der Tod; water, das Wasser; life, das Leben, etc., are of masculine or neuter.

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
inventor of literary characters had only copied something
that he had been able to distinguish from those of the
Atlanteans, or that the forms which he gave to the sixteen
letters of his alphabet were absolutely his own work; what is
certain is that these sixteen letters took, under his hand, a
direction absolutely opposed to that which the Sudeen
characters followed; that is, whereas among the Atlanteans
the writer traced his characters on a horizontal line going
from right to left, among the Celts he placed them adversely,
proceeding from left to right. This notable difference, for
which no one as far as I know has ever given the cause,
depended upon what I am about to relate.
At the very remote epoch when the Atlantean characters
were invented, the Sudeen Race, still near to its beginning,
inhabited Africa beyond the equator towards the South pole;
so that the observer having turned towards the sun, seeing
it rise at the right and set at the left, naturally followed its
course in the movement of his writing. But what was
natural in this position, which might even be considered as
sacred by peoples worshippers of the sun, ceased to be so on
the opposite side of the globe for septentrional peoples
placed very far from the tropics. Among these peoples, the
observer turned towards the sun saw it, on the contrary,
rise at the left and set at the right, so that in starting from
the same principle which had directed the Sudeen writer,
the Celt, in following the course of the sun, must naturally
trace a line of opposite direction and give to his writing the
movement from left to right.
The knowledge of this cause, so simple in appearance,
gives to the observer an historical key which will be of
great use to him, for any time he sees any writing fol-
lowing the direction from right to left, as that of the
Phrenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, Etruscans, etc., he can at-
tribute the origin to the Sudeen Race, and, on the contrary,
when he sees this writing follow the opposite direction
from left to right, as the Runic, the Armenian, Tibetan,

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 Phrenician and Etruscan Script 97
Sanscrit, etc., he will not be mistaken in considering the
origin Borean.
The Celts distinguished their alphabetical characters by
the epithet runic, and this word convinces me that they
imitated Atlantean characters. For this reason: the
Atlanteans had two kinds of writings, the one hieroglyphic
and the other cursive, as is sufficiently proved by the testi-
mony of Egypt, the last place on the earth where their power
had flung its final splendour. Now the word runic signifies
in a great number of dialects, cursive, so that it can be
conjectured that the runic characters were only the cursive
characters of the Atlanteans, slightly altered in their form
and turned the opposite way.
This opinion receives, besides, a great degree of prob-
ability by the striking resemblance between the cursive
Phrenician characters and the runic, or cursive, characters
of the Etruscans and the Celts.
But, even before poetry and music, grammar and writing
were invented, the mathematical sciences had made some
progress. Numeration had no need for the development of
the intelligence to give the first elements to arithmetic, and
one cannot but believe that the division which was made of
the territorial possessions soon furnished them with practical
geometry, as the needs of agriculture led to those of
astronomy.
These sciences, no doubt, were still far from their per-
fection, but it sufficed that they had begun to be cult vated,
in order that the aim of Providence might be fulfilled. I
have frequently said that Providence gives only the prin-
ciples of things. It is to the Will of Man that culture belongs,
under the influence of Destiny.
The Celtic root ran or rt~n develops the idea of course and of flight as I
have already shown. The word rt~nit or rt~nill e:q>resses then the disposition
to run.
7

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 CHAPTER VI

DEVIATION OF THE CULT: THE CAUSE OF IT-SUPERSTITION

AND FANATICISM: THEIR ORIGIN

IF developed
the principles given by Providence had continued to be
w:th the same rectitude, the Borean Race,
having rapidly attained the culminating point of the social
edifice, would have offered a spectacle worthy of admiration.
Europe, which it had made iliustrious early, would not have
been the victim of so many vicissitudes, and, without having
need of becoming the slave of Asia during so long a train of
centuries, would have held much sooner the sceptre of the
world. But Destiny, which determined a series of events
wholly opposed, would have demanded a Will as pure as it
was strong, to prevent this realization or to resist their
efforts, and this Will not only does not exist, but the one
which existed, instead of following the movement with
which Providence had impressed it, resisted it, wished to
make itself the centre, to be its own motor, and, far from
evading Destiny, allowed itself to be dominated by it and to
bend beneath its law.
A single passion badly governed caused all the evil. It
was vanity which, being exalted in the bosom of Voluspa in
particular, and in all women generally, brought forth egotism
whose cold inspirations instead of extending the intellectual
sphere restrained it and produced in the soul an ambition
devoid of love of glory.
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 Druidesses Preside Over Cult 99

In the different countries occupied by the Celts, several

colleges for women were established, at the head of each of
which was a Druidess who was under the orders of Voluspa
only; these Druidesses presided over the cult and uttered
the oracles; they were consulted in special affairs, as
Voluspa was consulted in general affairs. At first, their
authority was widely extended; the Druids did nothing
without taking their advice, and even the kings obeyed
their orders; in proportion as the sacerdotal class became
enlightened, in proportion as sciences and arts began to
flourish, the Druidesses perceived that their influence di-
minished, that authority was leaving them, and that they
were revered less for themselves than for the Divinity
whose instruments they were.
It was evident that Man, astonished by the magnitude of
the movement which had taken place, recovered imper-
ceptibly from his astonishment and endeavoured to regain
his real place which this movement had caused him to lose.
The same thing which had happened on the occasion of the
first development of the instinctive sphere happened in
other respects. It was a question, then as before, of know-
ing which of the two sexes would be the master.
If woman had been wise, she would have consented to
let herself be considered the instrument of the Divinity, the
means of communication between the Divinity and Man.
This Pc>sition was assuredly glorious enough to satisfy her
vanity. Her vanity was not, however, satisfied, because the
awakened egotism persuaded her that there was nothing in
this for her. When she spoke, was it she whom they heard?
No; it was the Divinity who spoke through her voice. When
she was silent, what authority had she? None; it was the
Druid, it was the king, it. was the mayor who commanded.
Was she to conceal herself in her insignificant r6le? Was it
sufficient for her ambition? Did not her faculties call her to
highest destinies? Her faculties! Ah! who could appreciate
them better than she? Did not all that had happened

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too Hermeneutic Interpretation
depend on her? The Divinity was sought in the heavens
because her voice had placed it there. Oracles were de--
manded of her because her intelligence had conceived them.
If the future had been penetrated, was it not the force of her
will that had realized the visions of her imagination? Would
it not be possible that the future should depend on her, even
as the existence of the Divinity had depended on her?
Hardly is this impious idea conceived than Providence,
dismayed, withdraws, and Destiny takes its place. Voluspa
is no longer the organ of Divinity, she is a prophetic in-
strument of whom Destiny will dispose. Henceforth it is in
vain that you will search for the real future of any verb
in the language she will use. The verb in her tongue will be
deprived of a future.
The necessity of Destiny alone will bring forth the future
in developing the consequences of the past.
Thus woman, no longer able to reign by truth, and wish-
ing to preserve absolutely her sway, sought to rule by error.
All the oracles which proceeded from the sanctuaries were
equivocal and mysterious; one heard only of calamities, of
sins committed, of expiations demanded, of penances to be
done. The supreme Divinity, Teutad, formerly represented
by the beautiful image of a father, appeared only in the
austere traits of a tyrant. The first Herman having become
the God of War under the name of Thor 2 wasnolongertheir
protecting ancestor, always occupied with the welfare of the
nation; this was a god terrible and severe, who gave to
himself the most formidable titles; he was named the Father
of Carnage, the Depopulator, the Incendiary, the Exter-
minator. His spouse Friga or Freya, dame par excellence, who,
quite as cruel as her husband, designated in advance those

The Celtic languages, which have not felt the mixing of the Atlantean
tongues, such as the Saxon, the German, the English, etc., have not the simple
future.
The word thor which signifies properly a bull was the emblem of strenrth.
The bull was later the emblem of the Celts as I will relate.

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 Human Victims Sacrificed to Thor 101

who were to be killed in combat and, in bizarre contrast, held

in one hand the cup of voluptuousness, in the other the sword
dedicated to death.
A frightful superstition succeeded the simple cult which
had been followed until then; religion became intolerant and
savage, all the passions which agitated the soul of Voluspa
inflamed the souls of the ancestors; they became like her
jealous, greedy, and suspicious, and the innocent sacrifices,
which one had been accustomed to make to them, could no
longer content them. Animals were sacrificed, libations of
milk were replaced by libations of blood, and, as it became
necessary to establish a difference between the special
ancestors and those of the nation, they were led to sacrifice
to Teutad, to Thor, to Freya human victims, believing that
the purest and noblest blood would be to them the most
precious. r
And one must not imagine that these victims were taken
from among the captives or among the slaves, no; the most
noble heads were often the most menaced. The Druidesses,
inspired by Voluspa, succeeded in filling the minds with such
religious furor that those were regarded as favoured of the
gods whom fate designated to be buried alive, or to shed
their blood at the foot of the altars. The victims themselves
congratulated each other when they were chosen. No one
was excepted; blindness reached the point where it was
regarded as the most favourable sign when the king himself
was called to this honour and, without respect for his rank,
From the name Tlwr, the God of War, are derived the words lerrOf' and
terrible. The words fright, frightful, fear, attach themselves likewise to the
impression made by the cult of Freya. One says still in Saxon jriht4n, in
Danish freyeter, in English, frighten. And what is strange is that from the
same Goddess Friga or Freya the word frigan to make l011e is derived; in
Langue d.'Oc, !ringer and in French,jringuer. Hence also the words frai and
frayer in speaking of fish. This singular contrast gives rise to the thought
that according to the doctrine of the Celts, this goddess was conceived under
a double nature; sometimes presiding at love and birth under the name of
Friga, and sometimes over war and death under the name of Freya. I will
return later to this contrast upon which no one has commented sufficiently.

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 102 Hermeneutic Interpretation
he was sacrificed in the midst of applause and shouts of joy
of all the nation.
The f~tes, where these atrocious sacrifices were offered,
were often repeated; every nine months a f~te was celebrated,
during which nine victims a day were sacrificed for nine
consecutive days. On the slightest occasion the Druidesses
demanded a messenger to go to visit the ancestors and carry
to them news of their descendants. Sometimes the unfor-
tunate was thrown headlong upon the lance of Herman-Sayl,
sometimes crushed between two stones; sometimes drowned
in a whirlpool; more often they caused his blood to spurt
forth, drawing a more or less favourable sign by the more or
less impetuosity with which it spurted. But it was when the
fear of an imminent evil agitated the minds that superstition
displayed what was most horrible. If I should relate the
many instances which come to my mind, I would never
finish. Here an army sacrifices its general; there, a general
decimates his officers. I see a sexagenarian monarch who is
burned in honour of Teutad; I hear the cries of the nine
children of Haquin, whose throats were cut upon the altar
of Thor; it is for Freya that these deep pits are dug where
the victims who are her devotees are buried alive.
Wherever I glance in Europe I see traces of these hideous
sacrifices. From the glacial shores of Sweden and of Iceland
to the fertile shores of Sicily, and from the Borysthenes to the
Tagus, I see everywhere human blood smoking about the
altars. Europe does not suffer alone from this destructive
scourge; the calamitous epidemic crosses the borders with the
Celts and their trail infects the opposite shores of Africa and
Asia. It comes even from Iceland and carries its venom into
the other hemisphere. Yes, it is from Iceland that Mexico
has received this abominable practice. In whatever place
one sees it established, in theNorth or the South, in the Orient
or the Occident, its origin can without doubt be traced to
Europe; it originated in the sombre horror of its forests; its
beginning has been, as I have said, wounded vanity and

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 Spread of Sacrificial Scourge 103

weakness which wished to command. This weakness was

often punished by its own faults; often the sword which the
women held suspended over a sex which they knew how to
govern only by terror fell upon their own breasts. Without
speaking here of the young virgins who were buried alive or
were thrown into the rivers in honour of Freya, one must not
forget that the wives of kings and princes of the State were
forced by superstitious opinions, which they had created
themselves, to follow their husbands to the tomb by stran-
gling themselves at the funerals or by throwing themselves
upon the flames of the funeral pyre. This barbarous custom,
which exists still in certain places in Asia, was brought there
by the Celtic conquerors.

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 CHAPTER VII

SEVENTH REVOLUTION IN THE SOCIAL STATE-ESTABLISH-

MENT OF THEOCRACY

THEdeviation
ferocious and superstitious cult to which a fatal
from the providential laws had subjected
the Celts, the terror which was the natural consequence
of it, and that habit of always feeling death hovering
over their heads made them inaccessible to pity. Intol-
erant by system and valorous by instinct, they dealt death
with the same facility as they received it. War was their
element; it was only in the midst of battles and whilst
fatigue overpowered their bodies that their spirit, assailed
on all sides by phantoms, found a sort of repose. In
whatever place victory guided their steps, devastation
followed them. Implacable enemies of other religions,
they destroyed the symbols, overthrew the temples, broke
the statues, and, often, on the point of going to a decisive
battle, they made a vow to exterminate all men and all
animals which might fall into their hands; and this they
did in a forbidden manner, even as the Hebrews did a
long time after. They believed thus to honour the terrible
Thor, the most valiant of their ancestors, and did not
imagine that there were other means for Teutad himself
to show his force and power than carnage and destruc-
tion. The sole virtue for them was valour; the sole
vice, cowardice. They named the infernal region Nifel-
104

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 Pillars of Hercules 105

heim, 1 the sojourn of cowards. Convinced that war was

the source of glory in this world and that of salvation in
the next, they regarded it as an act of justice, and thought
that the strength that gives the incontestable right over
the weak established the obvious mark of Divinity. When
they were unfortunately vanquished, they received death
with a savage intrepidity and forced themselves to laugh,
when dying even in the midst of agony.
They had already had more than one occasion to exercise
their favourite passion. The Atlanteans, being attacked in
the very heart of their cities, had been vanquished on all
sides. The coasts of the Mediterranean ravaged from the
shores of the Black Sea to the ocean belonged to the Celts.
The few remaining Sudeens had been reduced to slavery.
Masters of many ports, the conquerors were not long in
creating a sort of navy, with which, gaining without trouble
the opposite coasts of Mrica, they had settled colonies there.
Conducted by one of their mayors, whose great valour had
given him the name of HerOll, they overran Spain, and even
pillaging and devastating the settlements of the Atlanteans,
came as far as the famous strait, since called the Pillars of
Hercules. I think I am quite right in advancing the opinion
that it was on account of this event that this strait was thus
named, for as I have already observed, the name of Hercules
does not differ from that of HerOll. There is elsewhere
preserved an ancient tradition on this subject. The surname
of this Hercules of Celtic origin was Ogmi; now the word
Ogmi signifies the great power or the grand army. 2
Thus, the Celts, possessing entire Europe at this epoch,
pushed their hordes as far as Mrica, menaced the Temple of
The word nifel expresses the snorting of horses when they are frightened.
The French verb renifter is derived from it. In the Lanpe d'Oc today is nijlar,
to blow with the nose, and, figuratively, to bleed from the nose.
This word composed of two others should be written Hug mflh; the first
huge preserved in English means very vast; it has served for the Latin augere,
for the French augmenler; the second, mflh, preserved in German, is analogous
to the English may, whence comes mayer, a powerful one, a mayor.

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Io6 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Ammon, and caused Egypt to tremble. It was to be feared
that this savage power would conquer the world; and indeed
it would have, had it made itself mistress of this .ancient
realm whose foundation, according to Herodotus, goes back
at least twelve thousand years before our era. This event,
if it had taken place, would have been most calamitous for
humanity. Providence prevented it, not by directly chang-
ing the perverted Will of the Borean Race, but by chastising
it; and this is what was done.
Some Celts returning from Mrica to Europe brought
with them the germs of an unknown malady, so much the
more terrible in its effects as it destroyed the very hopes of
the population by attacking the generative principles. It
was called elephantiasis, perhaps on account of the elephant
which appeared to be subject to it. In a short time, this cruel
malady, spreading from south to north and from west to
east, made frightful ravages. The Celts who were attacked
lost suddenly their strength and died of exhaustion. Nothing
could counteract its venom. When Voluspa was interrogated
she ordered in vain expiatory sacrifices. The human victims
which were immolated by thousands did not turn aside the
curse. The nation was perishing. For the first time in a
long while, these indomitable warriors, whose only resource
was their strength, felt that strength was not everything.
The weapons fell from their hands. Incapable of the least
action, they dragged themselves into their solitary camps,
more like spectres than soldiers. If the Atlanteans had been
prepared then with means of attacking them they would
have perished.
There was at that time among the Druids a wise and
virtuous man whose knowledge and peaceful virtues had
been little observed until then. This man, still in the flower
of his youth, groaned in secret over the sins of his corn-
patriots, and believed justly that their cult, instead of
honouring the Divinity, had offended it. He understood the
traditions of his country and had studied nature deeply.

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 Sacred Mistletoe Revealed to Rama 107

When he saw the fatal malady extending its ravages, he did

not doubt that it was a scourge sent by Providence. He
examined it with care, he understood the principle of it;
but it was in vain that he sought the remedy. Desperate
and being unable to work the good that he had hoped,
wandering one day in the sacred forest, he sat down at the
foot of an oak and there fell asleep. While he slept it seemed
to him that a loud voice called him by name. He thought
himself awake and saw before him a man of majestic stature
clothed in the robe of the Druids and carrying in his hand a
wand around which a serpent was entwined. Astonished at
the phenomenon he asked the Unknown the meaning of it,
when this one taking him by the hand made him arise and
showing him, under the same tree at the foot of which he had
been lying, a beautiful branch of mistletoe, said: "0 Rarna!
the remedy thou seekest is here." And suddenly drawing
from his breast a small golden pruning knife, cut the branch
and gave it to Rarna. Mter having added a few words, as
to the manner of preparing the mistletoe and using it, he
disappeared.
The Druid awoke with a start, profoundly agitated by the
dream which had just come to him; he did not doubt that it
was prophetic. He prostrated himself at the foot of the
sacred tree where the vision had appeared to him and
thanked from the depths of his heart the protecting Divinity
that had sent it to him. Then, having seen that in truth this
tree bore a branch of mistletoe, with reverence he detached it
and carried it to his cell, carefully enveloped in the end of the
scarf which served him as a girdle. Mter having prayed,
in order to invoke the blessing of heaven upon his work,
he began the operations which had been indicated to him
and accomplished them successfully. When he believed his
mistletoe sufficiently prepared, he approached a man hope-
lessly diseased, and having made him swallow a few drops of
his divine remedy in a fermented liquor, saw with inexpress-
ible joy that life about to become extinct was reanimated

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Io8 Hermeneutic Interpretation
and that death forced to abandon its prey had been van-
quished. All the experiments that he made had the same
success, so that soon the rumour of his marvellous cures
spread afar.
From all sides they hastened to him. The name of Rama
was on all lips accompanied by a thousand benedictions.
The sacerdotal college assembled, and the sovereign pontiff
having asked Rama to disclose by what means a remedy so
wonderful and to which the nation owed its salvation had
come into his possession, the Druid had no difficulty in telling
him, but, wishing to give to the sacerdotal corps a proper
power which it had not had up to that time, he made the
Drud realize that in causing the plant indicated by the
Divinity to become known to the nation, in offering it even
for its veneration as sacred, the preparation of it ought not to
be divulged, but, on the contrary, to be concealed with care
in the sanctuary, so as to give to religion more splendour
and more force by a means less violent than those employed
until then. The sovereign pontiff felt the value of these
reasons and approved them. The Celtic nation knew that
it was to the mistletoe of the oak, designated by the Divine
Goodness, that it owed the cessation of the terrible plague
which was devouring it, but learned at the same time that
the mysterious property of this plant, the manner of gather-
ing and preparing it, were reserved for the Lzhrs alone, to
the exclusion of the other two classes, the Leyts and the
Folks.
This was the first time, in reference to the sacerdotal
caste, that the other two castes of men-at-arms and of
labouring men were blended in a single one, and this gave rise
to a new idea and a new word. Inconsidering the Leyts and
Folks as a single people over whom the Lzhrs had dominion,
the two words were contracted into one and formed the word
Leyolk, the French laique or layman. If the Leyts experi-
enced some trouble from this confusion they were not at all
prepared to oppose it. Conditions influenced them. As in

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 Lcehrs, Leyts, and Folks 109

the principle of society the Folks who had owed their pre-
servation to the Celts had rightfully been placed under their
dependence, it was equally just that the Folks themselves,
who owed them their preservation should recognize their
dominion.
This change, which did not seem of much importance at
the moment when it was effected, had the most important
consequences afterwards, when pure Theocracy, being es-
tablished and every line of demarcation effaced, degenerated
into absolute despotism or into anarchistic democracy,
according as the power was usurped by the force of a
single one or by that of a multitude.
Thus, in the Universe, evil is often hom of good and good
of evil, as night succeeds day and day night, so that the laws
of Destiny may be accomplished and the Will of Man,
choosing freely the one or the other, may be drawn along by
the very force of things to the light and the truth which
Providence constantly presents to him.

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 CHAPTER VIII

APPEARANCE OF A DIVINE MESSENGER

MEANWHILE, a solemn
this auspicious event.
f~te was
established to celebrate
They wished the commemora-
tion of the discovery of the mistletoe of the oak to coincide
with the commencement of the year, which was placed at
the winter solstice. As obscure darkness covered the Boreal
pole at this epoch; they were accustomed to think of night
as the beginning of day and they called the first night after
the solstice, Night-Mother. It was at the middle of this
mysterious night that the New-heyl was celebrated, that is
to say, the new welfare or new health. The night became
then sacred among the Celts, and they were accustomed to
count by nights. The sovereign pontiff regulated the dura-
tion of the year by the course of the sun, and that of the
month by the course of the moon. One can imagine from all
the traditions which have come down to us from these remote
times that this duration was established after very exact
calculations, announcing an already extensive knowledge of
astronomy.
1 It is, I think, unnecessary to say that the French festival of N~l, un-

known to the early Christians, is derived from it.

The month it appears was composed of thirty days, the year of three
hundred and sixty-five days and six hours, and the cycles of thirty and sixty
years. The festival of New-heyl, which ought to take place the first night of
the winter solstice, is found put back forty-five days in the time of Olatis
Magnus in the year 1000 A.D., and for the reason that the Celtic year, being
110

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 Persecution of Rama by Voluspa II1

As I am forbidden details in this work, I shall refrain

from describing the ceremonies observed in gathering the
mistletoe of the oak. All that can be desired on this subject
may be found in many places. Only I must not neglect to
say, however, that the mysteriousBeingwho had shown the
mistletoe to the Druid Rama, honoured as one of the
ancestors of the Borean Race, was known by the name of
.tEsculapius, 2 that is to say, the hope of salvation of the
people, and considered as the Genius of Medicine.
As for the Druid Rama himself, his destiny was not to be
confined there. The Divinity who had chosen him to save the
Celts from an inevitable downfall in arresting the terrible
plague which was destroying them had likewise elected him
to tear from their eyes the bandage of superstition and to
change their homicidal cult. But in this respect his mission
was not so easy to fulfil. The physical epidemic was evident
to all, it menaced all; none had any motives for preserving
it, whereas the moral epidemic not only did not seem such to
all, but was considered sacred by some, and was for others
an object of interest or of vanity. Accordingly, as soon as the
Druid had made known his intentions, as soon as he had said
that the same Genius who had appeared to him to show him
the mistletoe of the oak had appeared again to command
him to dry the traces of blood which had inundated the
altars, as soon as he had condemned human sacrifices as use-
less, atrocious, horrifying to the gods of the nation, he was
regarded as a dangerous innovator whose ambition sought to
profit by a propitious event to assure his power.

longer than the revolution of the sun, gave the mistake of a day in one hundred
and thirty-two years. These forty-five days which remained correspond to
five thousand nine hundred and thirty years, and, even supposing there had
been no other change, carry back consequently the establishment of the Celtic
calendar to nearly five thousand years before our era.
Particularly in Pliny's Nat. Hist., lxvi., c. 44
The word &c-heyl-hopa, whence the name .tEsculapius, can also signify,
the hope of salvation is wood, or the wood is the hope of salvation; because the
word IEtc signified likewise a people and a wood.

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112 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Voluspa, being consulted at first, dared not accuse him of
impiety and rebellion; the ascendancy which he had ac-
quired over a great part of the nation by the immeasurable
service which he had rendered them did not yet permit such
expressions; but after having praised him and having thanked
heaven for the favour he had done, she was moved to pity
by the weakness of his soul and showed him as a pusillani-
mous man, full indeed of gentleness and good intentions, but
utterly incapable of elevating his thoughts to the austere
height of the divine thoughts. This explanation of the
pythoness found at first many adherents. Although they
did not cease to love the good Rama, they sincerely regretted
that he lacked courage, and as his enemies saw this inclina-
tion they cleverly profited by it by adding ridicule to pity.
His name Rama signified a ram; they found it too strong for
him and by a malicious softening of the first letter changed
it to Lam, in other words, a lamb. This name of Lam which
he retained became celebrated throughout the earth as we
shall shortly see. Man can reject the benefits of Providence,
but Providence goes on none the less to its end. The Celts,
by disdainfully ignoring its voice, by persecuting its messen-
ger, lost their political existence, and allowed Asia to take a
glory which they should have been able to have kept for
Europe. Destiny was again too strong for the blind Will of
Man to resist it.

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 CHAPTER IX

CONSEQUENCES OF THIS EVENT-THE DIVINE MESSENGER IS

PERSECUTED-HE SEPARATES HIMSELF FROM THE CELTS

NOTWITHSTANDING the decision of Voluspa regarding

him, Rama none the less continued his movement; he
manifested boldly his intention of abolishing blood sacrifices
of any sort, and announced that such was the Will of Heaven
as revealed by the great ancestor of the nation, Oghas. 1 This
name, which he substituted for that of Teutad, obtained the
effect which he desired. The Celts, according as they
adhered to his opinions, or as they discarded them, found
themselves suddenly divided into Oghases or Teutads, and
one can judge in advance the success which the schism made.
In order to give his party a rallying point more fixed and
more evident, the Druid innovator seized upon the allusion
which had been made to his name and took for his emblem a
ram, which he allowed his followers to call Ram or Lam,
according as they wished themselves under the relation of
force or gentleness. The Celts being attached to the ancient
doctrine, on account of Thor, their first Herman, opposed the
The word as, ans, or hans signified ancient and as I have already said og
meant very great. The French anc2tre holds to the root ans; this root which
first furnished the name of the god Pena.tes of the Celts, As,&, or Esus, finally
became a simple title of honour, given to distinguished men in addressing
them: Ans-heaulme, Ans-carvel, &-menard, Ens-sordel, etc. This title pro-
nounced singly signified SorJereign ; from there the German Hansa and the
name of Hanseatic towns.
8 ~~

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I 14 Hermeneutic Interpretation
bull to the ram and took that vigorous and furious animal
as symbol of their strength and their audacity. 1 Such were
the first emblems known among the Borean Race, and such
was the origin of all armorial bearings which later were
made use of to distinguish nations from nations and families
from families.
Each setting up according to his own opinion the Ram or
the Bull, it was not long before the partisans went from
abuses to menaces and from menaces to combats. The
nation found itself in a situation eminently dangerous.
Rama saw it, and as violent means were foreign to his peace-
loving disposition, he tried to persuade his adversaries.
He showed them with as much sagacity as talent that the
first Voluspa, in founding the cult of the Ancestor, had given
fewer proofs than he of her celestial mission, since speaking
only in the name of the first Herman she ha<;l but arrested
partial evils, had only given special laws, often calamitous;
whereas he, guided by the supreme Ancestor, Father of the
entire race, had had the felicity of saving the nation from
total ruin, and he had presented to it, in the Father's name,
general and propitious laws, by means of which it would be
forever delivered from the odious yoke which the bloody
sacrifices had imposed.
These reasons, although they influenced peace-loving and
sincere men, found an invincible opposition in the interest,
pride, and warlike passions of the others. Voluspa, who felt
her authority wavering, had the need of a coup d'eclat to
reinforce herself, and seized the opportunity during a festival
to call Rama to the foot of the altar. Rama who perceived
the snare refused to come, not wishing to present his head
to the axe of the priests. He was anathematized. In this ex-
tremity, since it was necessary either to fight or to expatri-
r As I have already remarked that the words tem>r and terrible were at-
tached to the cult of Thor, symbolized by a bull, I need only say here that by
a contrary sentiment, the cult of the lamb, Lam, produced the words lament,
lamentable, lamentation, etc.

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 Symbols of the Ram and the Bull 115
ate himself, and being resolved not to bring upon his father-
land the scourge of a civil war, he determined upon the latter.
An immense crowd of followers of all classes attached
themselves to his fortune. The nation, shaken to its founda-
tions, lost through its stubbornness a great part of its in-
habitants. Before leaving, Rama made a last effort; he
uttered in the name of Oghas, the supreme Ancestor, an
oracle in which the Celts were threatened with the greatest
evils if they continued to shed blood upon the altars. He
sent it by a messenger to the sacerdotal college. Voluspa
who was informed of it and who feared its effect upon the
minds anticipated the arrival of the messenger by a con-
trary oracle dedicating him to the merciless Thor; and upon
the messenger's arrival had his throat cut.
Doubtless the Borean Race never before found itself in
such difficulties. It seemed as if the very gods, divided in
opinion, fought from the depths of the clouds a battle of
which unfortunate mortals were to be the victims. It was
in fact Providence and Destiny that were struggling together.
The Will of Man was the battlefield where these two formid-
able powers carried their blows. The different names which
this Will gave them mattered not. The ancient poets felt
indeed this truth, and Homer particularly has rendered it
with a magnificence no other has equalled. It is, neverthe-
less, in the understanding of this truth that real poetry
exists. Outside of that, there is only versification.
At last, deprived of all hope of an agreement Rama
departed, taking along with him, as I have said, the healthiest
and most enlightened part of the nation. He followed at
first the same route that the Bodohnes Celts had taken; but
when he came in sight of the Caucasus instead of following
the sinuosities of this famous mountain between the Black
Sea and the Caspian, he ascended the Don, and passing
afterwards the Volga, he reached, in skirting this last sea,
that elevated plain which looks down upon the Aral Sea.
Before arriving at this country, which in our day is still

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I I6 Hermeneutic Interpretation
occupied by hordes of nomads, he had encountered several of
those tribes belonging ostensibly to the Borean Race. He
was entirely ignorant of their existence, and was not a little
surprised to find these places, which he believed deserts,
fertile and inhabited. These tribes, at first frightened by the
aspect of so many armed warriors, became easily calmed
when they saw that these men, who had almost the same
colour and language, 1 did not try to do them any harm and
did not belong to the Black People with whom they were
forced to be in continual warfare in order to avoid slavery.
Some even became united with the Celts and served them as
guides in these new regions. Their dialect was soon under-
stood, and it was learned from them that the country in
which they were was called Touran, in contrast to the less
elevated country, more level, more agreeable, situated
beyond the mountains, called Iran, from which they had
been driven by conquering people who had come from the
southern coast. From the description which Rama obtained
of these peoples, he was not long in recognizing them as
belonging to the Sudeen Race, and he resolved immediately
to oust them from this country which they had usurped and
to establish himself there. He remained, however, some time
in Touran, in order to take a census of the people who had
submitted to his doctrine, to regulate the different classes
which so sudden a movement had confused, and to give to
the theocratic government which he was planning the
beginning of whatever improvement circumstances might
permit. He neglected nothing in order to draw to him all
the Touranian tribes of which he had knowledge; as he knew
that there existed an immense country towards the north,
which these tribes called the paternal land, Tat4rah, 2
It is remarkable that still in our day the Tartar Oighouri bas very close
relation with the Irish Celts; it is known that the Persian and German have
also many roots in common.
It is from the word Tal-4ra1J that the name Tal4re is derived, which we
have for a long time written Tarla.ry in opposition to the synonym of all the
Asiatic people.

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 Rama Founds Theocratic Government 117

because it had been the abode of their first Father, he did not
fail to make them understand that it was in the name of
their great Ancestor Oghas 1 who was also his, that he had
come to deliver their fatherland from the yoke of strangers.
This idea, which flattered their pride, gained their confidence
without trouble. Several phenomena which had not struck
them until then were called to their mind. One remembered
a dream; another a vision. This one related the speech of a
dying old man; that one spoke of an ancient tradition; all had
reasons for regarding the present event as a marvellous
thing. Their enthusiasm increased as they talked together.
Soon it reached a high pitch. It is the nature of man to
believe in the action of Providence upon him; in order that
he should not believe it, it is necessary either that his passions
blind him or that anterior events may have caused his will to
bend the laws of Destiny, or that his own will influencing
him takes the place of Providence.
1 The Tartars of our day revere still Oglsas or Oglwtu as their first Patriarch;

those who call themselves Oiglwurs on account of that are the most learned
and the most anciently civilized.

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 CHAPTER X

WHO R.AMA WAS-IDS REUGIOUS AND POUTICAL THOUGHTS

SEVERAL messengers were dispatched into upper Asia to

carry the news of what had come pass; the rumour
to
reached to the remotest countries; from all parts were seen
tribes issuing, curious to see the messenger of their Great
Ancestor and envious to take part in the war which was being
prepared. On several important occasions Rama showed
himself worthy of his exalted reputation. His active wisdom
anticipated all needs, it smoothed all difficulties; whether he
spoke or whether he acted, one felt in his words as in his
actions something supernatural. He penetrated their
thoughts, he foresaw the future, he healed the sick; all nature
seemed to submit to him. Thus Providence, which destined
the Borean Race to rule the earth, willed it, and threw before
their steps the luminous rays which were to lead them.
Rama was therefore the first man of this race whom it
inspired immediately. It is he whom the Hindus still honour
under his own name of Rama; it is he whom Tibet, China,
Japan, and the vast regions of northern Asia, know under
the name of Lama, Fo, Pa, Pa-pa, Padi-Shah, or Pa-si-pa.'
1 I have said that the word Rama signified properly a ram ; thus it is by

the symbol of the ram that Osiris, Dionysus, and even Jupiter have been de-
signated. The lamb as most particularly applied to the word Lam has not
been less famous. The white or the black lamb still designates in our day the
diverse hordes of Tartars. From the same Fo, Pa, Pa-pa is understood the
Father pre-eminent. Padi-shah signifies the Paternal Monarch and Pa-si-[HJ.
the Father of Fathers.
118

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 Rama Called by Iranians, Giam-Shyd II9

It is he whom the first ancestors of the Persians, the Iranians,

named Giam-Shyd, because he was the first monarch of the
world, or the first ruler of the Black People; for this People
was called the People of Gian, or the Gian-ben-Gian, as the
Arabs say. One sees in the Zend-Avesta that the last Zoro-
aster renders Rama homage, in placing him long before the
first prophet of this name, and designating him as the first
man whom Ormuzd favoured with his inspiration. He is
everywhere called the Chief of the people and the flocks, the
most powerful and the most fortunate Monarch. It was he
who made agriculture the first of the sciences, and who taught
men the cultivation of the vine and the use of wine. He
founded the city of Ver, the capital of Var-Giam-Gherd.
"Admirable city," said Zoroaster, "like unto Paradise, whose
inhabitants were all happy."
The sacred books of the Hindus express themselves some-
what in these same terms; they have represented Rama as
a mighty theocrat, instructing savage men in agriculture,
giving new laws to a people already civilized, founding cities,
This is what is written in the Zend-A vesta, page Io8: "Zoroaster consulted
Ormuzd saying to him: '0 Ormuzd, absorbed in exoellence, just Judge of the
World who is the first man that has consulted you as I have done? . .'
Then Ormuzd said: 'The pure Giam-Shyd, chief of the tribes, and of the flocks,
0 holy Zoroaster, is the first man who has consulted me as thou art doing now.
I said to him in the beginning, I who am Ormuzd, submit thou to my Law
meditate upon it and bear it to thy people. . Mterwards he reigned. .
I put into his hands a golden sword. He advanced towards the light, towards
the country of the south and he found it beautiful.. '" Anquetii-Duper-
ron has written Djemschid but the orthography is bad. Giam-Shyd can signify
the Monarch of the World or the universal Sun, that which returns to itself;
it may also signify the Ruler or the Sun of the Black People, because this
people at the time of his power bore the name of Universal and had itself
called Gian, Gean, Jan, or Zan according to the dialect; but as the word Gian,
which signifies properly the World, is applied to the intelligence which moves
it, to the universal Spirit, to all that which is spiritual or spirituous and finally
to Wine, it has happened that Rama, Osiris, Dionysus, or Bacchus, who are
but the same personage under different names, have been considered some-
times as Universal Intelligence, sometimes as the Spiritual or Spirituous
Principle of all things and at last, by an absolute materialization of the primitive
idea, as the God of Wine.

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120 Hermeneutic Interpretation
overthrowing perverse kings, and spreading felicity on all
sides.
Arrian, who gives to Rama the name of Dionysus, that is
to say, Divine Intelligence, relates that this prince taught
these men, who before his coming led a wandering, savage
life, to sow the lands, to cultivate the vine, and to make
war.
However Zoroaster whose object was the reformation of
the Persian cult accuses Giam-Shyd of pride, and said the
end of his reign did not correspond with the beginning.
Some commentators add that this theocrat offended the
Divinity in trying to put himself in his place and in usurping
the divine honours. This reproach would have been better
founded, indeed, if Rama had announced as the object of his
cult, the Being of Beings, the Most High God Himself in
His Fathomless Unity; but his ideas could not rise to that
height, and, supposing that they had been able, those of the
people whom he conducted could not have followed him
there. Whatever great developments the intellectual sphere
had before acquired among the Borean Race, it had never-
theless not reached the point of attaining such heights. The
idea which it seized most easily was, as I have said, that of
the immortality of the soul; that is why the cult of the
Ancestors was the most suitable for it. The idea of the
existence of God, which was connected with it, only struck
it in a vague and confused manner.
The Celts saw in Teutad or in Oghas only the same thing
as these words expressed in the most physical sense: the
Universal Father or the Great Ancestor of their nation.
Rama, in setting himself up as the representative of the
Father or this common Ancestor, in affirming that their will
was reflected in his, in clothing himself, so to speak, with
sacerdotal immortality, and in persuading his followers that
he would leave his actual body only to take another, so as to
continue to instruct and govern them, from body to body till
the end of time; Rama, I say, did not do such an audacious

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 Supremacy of the Lamaic Cult 121

thing as did Krishna, Fo-Hi, and Zoroaster himself a long

time after. He did not leave the sentient and comprehensible
sphere of things, whereas the others did. The immortality
of the soul being recognized, his doctrine was simply a con-
sequence. He affirmed of the Great Ancestor only what he
affirmed of himself; and when he said that he would be born
again in order to continue his ministry, he did not say any-
thing else, except that the immortality of his soul, instead of
acting elsewhere in an invisible manner, would act in a
visible manner here on earth; so that his doctrine and the
forms of his cult profit mutually by support and proofs.
When one judges the Lamaic cult after the ideas acquired
during many centuries, it is not astonishing to find great
mistakes in it, especially if one cannot separate from it the
rust of superstitions which ages have attached to it and by
which its splendour is tarnished; but, if it is examined with-
out prejudice, one will feel that this cult was the most suit-
able which could have been offe:-ed at this epoch to the
intelligence of man. It succeeded Sabeanism which, already
stricken with age, shaken from all sides, could only be sus-
tained by its means. It was the cult of the Ancestors restored
to its highest relative perfection. It was simple in its dogmas,
innocent in its rights, and very pure in the morals which
resulted from it. It did not elevate the minds greatly, it is
true, but neither did it cause them violent disturbances.
Its principal virtue, which was filial piety, offered to the
civil institutions an almost unshakable base. I am persuaded
that if anything on earth could have claimed indestructibility,
this cult could have claimed it above any other. Observe
how, after so many vanished centuries, Japan, the whole of
I hardly dare say here how many centuries the chronologists count.
I have already shown how one can by means of astronomical calculations go
back nearly five thousand years before our era, to the epoch of Rama, sup-
posing that there were no corrections in the runic calendar; but who will
assure that there were none? Arrian, who no doubt wrote according to the
original traditions, relates that from Theocritus to Sandrocottus, who was
oonquered by Alexander, was reckoned 6.fo2 years. Pliny agrees perfectly

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1.2.2 Hermeneutic Interpretation
China, Tibet, and the immense regions of Tartary are still
dominated by the Lamaic cult, notwithstanding the multi-
tude of revolutions which have taken place in these countries.
Rama, escaped from persecution, endowed with a gentle
and compassionate character, banished all persecution from
his cult and prohibited all idols and all bloody sacrifice. He
divided the nation into four classes, thus adding a class to
the three which existed already among the Celts. The
classes which have survived in India are those of Priests,
Warriors, Labourers and Artisans; thus he divided into two,
those of Folks and gave to both the independence of terri-
torial property. The sovereign pontiffs belonged to the
class of priests and were considered immortal, their soul
never left one body but to inhabit another and always that
of a young child dedicated for this purpose. The royal
dignity was hereditary in a single family of the military class,
and this family, held sacred, became inviolable. The civil
magistrates were chosen by the king from the class of
labourers and duly held their judicial powers from the sover-
eign pontiff. The artisans furnished workmen and servants
of all kinds. Slavery was abolished.
Mter having laid these simple foundations for his cult
and his government, Rama, surrounded by the veneration of
an immense people devoted to his orders, left Touran where
he had remained until that time and entered Iran to make
the conquest and establish there the seat of his theocracy.
with Arrian, although he does not appear to have copied from him. Now
every one knows that Alexander's expedition to India took place in 326 B.c.,
from which it results that from Rama up to the present year, 1821, a dura-
tion of 8550 years is established.

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 CHAPTER XI

ESTABLISHMENT OF A UNIVERSAL EMPIRE, THEOCRATIC AND

ROYAL

A S I am forbidden purely historical details I shall con-

tinue rapidly through this part of the history of Rama.
All that is preserved of it in tradition seems allegorical.
The poets who have sung his triumphs long time after,
without doubting that he had ceased to be, have ostensibly
confused him, not alone with the Great Ancestor of the
Borean Race whose cult he established, but even with the
entire race which they have personified in him. This is
evident in the Ramayana, the greatest poem of the Hindus,
work of the celebrated Valmiki, and in the Dionysiacs of
Nonnus. r In these two poems, Rama and Dionysus are
equally persecuted in their youth, given over to the hatred
of an artificial and cruel woman who forced them to desert
their fatherland. After several adventures more or less
biza"e, both finished by triumphing over their enemies
and by making the conquest of India where they obtained
divine honours.
Without stopping, then, at this tissue of allegories, which
would here be of little interest, let us continue our historical
The English savants who have read Le Pomae tle Valmik affirm that it
infinitely surpasses in unity of action, magnificence of detail, and elegance of
style, the polished, erudite but cold work of Nonnus. There are, however,
remarkable points of similarity to be made between these two poems.
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124 Hermeneutic Interpretation
observation, so as to draw from it in the course of time useful
inferences, in order to attain to the moral understanding and
true politics founded upon the very nature of things. What
has most bewildered modem philosophers is the lack of
positive and traditional erudition. Not only did they not
know Man in himself, but they ignored also the course which
he had already travelled and the diverse modifications which
he had undergone. Among a multitude of situations, they
have never fixed but two or at most three, and they truly
believed, when their imaginations had made several flights
among the ancient Romans and among the Greeks, and
perfunctorily among the Hebrews, that all was said, that
they knew the history of the human race and everything
that was most wonderful in that history. They did not
know that Rome and Athens presented only small political
incidents of a certain form, whose generalization was im-
possible, and that the Hebrews, bearers of a tradition that
they did not comprehend, could offer to their meditations
only a book closed with seven seals, more difficult to break
than those mentioned in the Apocalypse.
We shall touch upon all of these things in their place; let
us first finish running through with a general description
the centuries whi~h separate us from it.
The Sudeens, established long since in Iran, opposed the
Celtic theocracy v.ith a vigorous resistance; but nothing
could arrest the religious enthusiasm with which Rama had
imbued his army. The sacred city Isthakar was taken by
storm. 1 A general and decisive battle having been fought at
1 The name of this ancient city should be written Ystlhan-Khatr, that is to

say the divine City. It is curious that in the ancient tongue of Iran, lsdhan
signifies God of Genius, as it still signifies it in Hungarian. This city is be-
lieved to be the same that the Greeks named PersepoUs. It is today in ruins.
One finds upon several monuments and especially upon the one that the
modern Persians call the Throne of Giam-Shyd inscriptions traced in charac-
ters entirely unknown. These characters, obviously written from left to right,
indicate a Borean origin. Several Persian poets and among others Nizamy
and Sahdy have covered with moral sentences the ruins of Istha-Khar; the

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 Nineveh Is Built 125

a short distance from this capital, they were utterly van-

quished. All those who refused to submit were obliged to
leave Iran, and they retreated in disorder, one part towards
Arabia and the other towards Hindustan, where the rumour
of their defeat had preceded them.
Rama, having built a city to establish the seat of his
sovereign pontificate, consecrated it to the Truth which he
proclaimed and named it in consequence Vahr. 1 In the
meantime, he dreamed of consolidating and extending his
empire. The Grand Khan, whom he had consecrated,
established his residence in lsthakhar and was subject to
him alone. The inferior khans obeyed his orders. One of
them, at the head of a powerful army advanced towards
Asia Minor, then called Plaksha, while another, marching
from the opposite side, arrived at the borders of the Sind, the
Indus of today, and, notwithstanding the formidable op-
position which he encountered there, he crossed the water
and penetrated into Hindustan. These two khans had
different success. The one who advanced towards the
north, having encountered the Bodohnes Celts with whom
he made alliance, had first to fight the Amazons whose entire
dominion he overthrew. These warrior-women, obliged to
submit or to leave the continent of Asia, took refuge in
small numbers in the islands of Cyprus, Lesbos, and some
others of the Archipelago. The conquest of Plaksha being
achieved, both the Tigris and the Euphrates flowing hence-
forth under the laws of Rama, the city of Nineveh was built
as the capital of a kingdom which bore the name of Chaldea,
following sentence is one of the most remarkable: "Among the sovereigns of
Persia, since the ages of Feridoun, of Zohak, of Giam-Shyd, dost thou know
among them any one whose throne bas been sheltered from destruction, and
which has not been overthrown by the hand of chance?"
One finds in the Zend-Avesta that the city of Vahr was the capital of
Vahr-Giam-Ghard, that is to say, the universal precincts of Truth. It
believed that the lovely city of Amadan rests today upon the ruins of the
ancient Vahr. In explaining in Chaldean the name AtrJGh..d4n, it is found to
signify the metropolis of Justice.

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126 Hermeneutic Interpretation
as long as the sacerdotal caste ruled there, and later took
the name of Syrian or Assyrian empire, when the military
caste came to gain the upper hand. The Arabs, who at this
epoch were already a mixture of Celts and Atlanteans, easily
contracted an alliance with the followers of Rama and
received his doctrine.
The Sudeens who did not want to submit to the law of
the vanquisher advanced towards Egypt, where, embarking
upon the Persian Gulf, they gained the southern part of Asia
where their greatest forces were gathered. It is there that
the struggle was severe. The khan who had passed the Sind
safely, being beaten afterwards by his enemies, was obliged
to recross it in disorder. The rumour of his defeat having
come to the ears of the Grand Khan, he marched to the aid
of the khan but vainly. A power greater than his was
needed here. Rama felt it; he saw that it was a question
now of more than ordinary conquest, and that upon the
contest which was beginning in Hindustan depended the
future of the Borean Race and the triumph of his cult. It
was upon the borders of the Ganges that this great question
was to be decided: to which of the two peoples, the black or
the white, would belong the empire of the world. He ad-
vanced therefore in person and collected about him all the
forces that he had. Tradition relates that a great number of
women called Thyiads fought under his orders, likewise a great
multitude of savage men called Satyrs. These were, no doubt,
a part of the Amazons whom he had subdued, and those tribes
of wandering Tartars whom he had united and civilized.
1 One can notice that the words Chalde4 and Syria are equally inter-

pretable by the Celt or by the Hebrew, as the greater part of those which go
back to a great antiquity. In the words Chalde4 and Syria are found the
roots Oald, an old man; and Syr, a master, a lord.
The foundation of the city of Ask-chaldan, called today Ascalon, proves
what I advance; the name of this ancient city, celebrated as the birthplace of
Semiramis, can signify the Celtic People, as well as the Chaldean People;
the primitive root of these two words being the same. It is worthy of atten-
tion that the Hindus still consider today the city of Askchala as sacred.

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 First Knowledge of Money 127

According to the same tradition, the war lasted for

seven years, and was marked by the most astonishing
phenomena. Rama used on many occasions supernatural
means. In the. midst of most arid deserts, while his troops
were consumed by a burning thirst, he discovered copious
springs which at his voice appeared to rise from the depths
of the rocks. When food failed, he found unexpected re-
sources in a sort of manna, of which he taught them the use.
A cruel epidemic having broken out, he received again from
his Genius a remedy which arrested the ravages. It appears
that it was from a plant named hom' that he extracted its
salutary juice. This plant which remained sacred among his
followers replaced the mistletoe of the oak and caused them
to forget the latter. But the most astonishing thing was to
see that this powerful Theocrat, finding himself transported
by the events of a long war into the midst of a nation long
since arrived at the highest degree of civilization, industrious
and rich, equalled it in industries and surpassed it in riches.
Among the things that I should have related in their
place, I find that I have omitted one, whose oversight the
sagacity of the reader could hardly supply. It is the inven~
tion of money. This invention like all those of greatest
importance is lost in the night of time. Those of the writers
who have believed it modem, as Wachter or Sperling, have
testified indeed to little knowledge of antiquity. At the
epoch when the Chinese Empire was founded, it was already
used. It is known that the Emperor Kanghi, having collected
pieces of money of all the dynasties, possessed some that
dated back to the time of Y ao. Even to the Fre:1ch mis-
sionaries he showed some of Indian origin struck as a coin
and anterior by far to those of the first Chinese monarchs.
It cannot be doubted that certain metals, particularly
gold, silver, and copper, have been chosen from time im-
1 This is thought to be the same that the Greeks called A momos and the

Latins Amomum. The Egyptians who knew it named it Persea, perhaps

owing to its origin.

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128 Hermeneutic Interpretation
memorial as representative tokens of all other objects, on
account of the facility with which one can divide them with-
out losing any of their value. There are cases, as Court de
Gebelin well observes, where one has need of a very small
representative value, and where can one find this value in a
thing which, without altering itself at all, can be presented
en masse and offer divisions as small as any one could wish?
A sheep, an ox cannot be divided without being destroyed.
Leather, cloth, a vase once divided can never be united
en masse. Metals alone have this faculty, and it is also why
they are used in the composition of this token called money;
wonderful token, without which neither real commerce nor
perfect civilization can exist.
I believe that it was at the epoch of the first alliance which
the Celts contracted with the Atlanteans that they received
the first knowledge of money, a knowledge at first somewhat
confused, as all other things, but which adjusted and per-
fected itself little by little. The imminent conditions in
which Rama found himself must have greatly extended the
use of it. He had to traverse countries where a long habit
rendered gold and silver an indispensable necessity. These
two metals he never lacked; one could say he had a Genius
at his orders, who disclosed treasures and mines on all sides
wherever there were any.
The mark with which this Theocrat struck his moneys
was a ram; this is why the figure and name of the symbol are
alike preserved among many nations. It appears that the
type used by the autochthonous Celts was a bull. As to the
money of the Atlanteans which had circulation then in
India, everything leads to the belief that it had as impress
the figure of a winged serpent called Dragon. r The Dragon
was the ensign of these peoples. Their supreme sovereign
The antique word, Drach-mon, a drachma, comes from it, that is to say a
dragon of silver. If one wishes to see some curious details concerning moneys,
he can consult my Vocabulaire tle la lanrued'Oc, the words Mot~ntda, DattlentJ.
Eutld, Pilulra, Sol, Deniar, Liard, Patac, Pecugna, etc.

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 The RawhOn Killed in Battle 129

bore the title of Rawhan or Raw'Mn, that is to say, Universal

Guardian, the Great King; whereas like those in Egypt, the
inferior sovereigns who were subject to him were called
Pha-rawMn, which signifies the voice, the echo or the reflex
of RawhOn.
In the poem of Ramayana, it speaks in detailed length of
the terrible battles which Rama and the RawhOn fought to
determine to whom the empire should belong. Nonnus in his
Dionysiaca has devoted twenty-five cantos describing them.
He calls the RawhOn Deriades, no doubt his own name, and
speaks of him always as the Black King, chief of the Black
People. After many vicissitudes, which it is needless to
discuss, the RawhOn, forced to abandon his capital Ayodhya 1
and to leave even the continent, retired to the island of
LankA, the Ceylon of today, and expected to find there a
shelter from his enemies, considering the water that sur-
rounded it an insurmountable obstacle; but he learned soon
to his cost what real courage can do when supported by
religious enthusiasm. Tradition reports that the com-
panions of Rama, whom neither dangers, nor labours, nor
fatigues could dishearten, used stones scattered about to
hold back the waves, and, fastening together many rafts,
they formed an immense bridge, upon which they passed
over. 2 The Grand Khan, by means of this, carried fire
into the very palace of RawhOn, and Rama, who followed
him closely, decided the victory. The RawhOn was killed
in the battle, and his vanquisher remained sole master of
Asia. It is said that in this memorable combat a woman
Today AotUI or Htsud, on the meridional border of Gagra or Sardjou,
which empties into the Ganges about latitude 26. If one can believe the
narratives of Pouranas, this ancient city was one of the greatest, most
celebrated, and holiest on earth; it was fifteen leagues in length.
The Hindus still show the remains of this famous bridge in a series of
rocks which they call the Bridte of RtsmG. The Mussulmans believed it their
duty, in a spirit of piety, to change the name of RtsmG to that of AdGm. Be-
sides one reads in the RGmGytsnG that the chief of the companions of Rama
was called Htsnout114n; this name, of Celtic origin. signifies the KiDg of Meo,
Klw.n-o/mGfl.
9

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130 Hermeneutic Interpretation
was happily delivered. Suspected of having yielded to the
desires of RawhOn, she proved her innocence by submitting
to the trial of fire. This event has provided and still today
provides the subject for a great number of dramas among the
Indians. It is even from there that the art of the theatre
has had its origin, as I have endeavoured to show in another
work.
Mter the conquest of LankA, nothing more resisted the
Celtic Theocrat. From the South to the North, from the
Orient to the Occident all submitted to his civil and religious
laws.
Discours Stir l'Essenu d Ia Forme de Ia Pome, en Ute des Vers Doru.

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 CHAPTER XII

RECAPITULATION

SUCH were the effects of the first intellectual disturbance.

These men whom I have left at the close of the last
book hardly escaping from a hostile race have become in a
few centuries masters of an immense empire and the legis-
lators of the world. It is true that this has not been without
trouble, without error, without accidents of any kind. But
is there anything great on earth that is founded without pain
and executed without peril? If the most mediocre edifices
have caused fatigue, how much more must have been in-
volved in the strongholds of the Caucasus, in the pyramids
of Egypt, or the great wall of China?
Modem politicians, accustomed to read histories edited
in miniature, see all on a small scale. They imagine that a
law only put down on paper is a law, and that an empire is
constituted because a constitution has been written. They
do not concern themselves as to whether Providence, Destiny,
or the Will of Man enters into these things. They declare
simply that the law must be atheistic, and they believe that
all is said. If they name Providence, it is as Epicurus does,
perfunctorily, and only to say that they have named it.
But it is not in this manner that the vast decrees which rule
the Universe reveal themselves.
Listen, Legislators, or Conquerors, and remember this.
Whatever your plans may be, if at least one of the three great
131

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132 Hermeneutic Interpretation
powers which I have mentioned does not sustain them, they
will vanish into air as vain smoke. And do you want to
know what kind of support each of these powers will give
them, if they are isolated? Destiny will lend them force of
arms; the Will of Man, force of opinion; Providence, moral
force which bears religious or political enthusiasm. The
union of these three forces alone gives stability. As soon as
one gives way, the edifice is shaken.
With Destiny alone, one makes conquests more or less
rapid, more or less disastrous, and one astonishes the world
with it, as Attila, Genghis, or Tamerlane. With the Will
alone, one institutes republics more or less stormy, more or
less transitory, as Lycurgus or Brutus; but it is only with the
intervention of Providence that one founds regular States,
Theocracies, or Monarchies whose klat covers the earth, and
whose duration fatigues time, as that of TaOth, Bharata,
Rama, Fo-Hi, Zeradosht, Krishna, or Moses.

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 THIRD BOOK

Nations resemble individuals, as I have said several

times; and entire races conduct themselves as nations.
They have their beginning, their middle, and their end. They
pass through all the phases of adolescence, virility, and old
age. But, as among individuals, the greater part die in
childhood without even attaining adolescence, it is the same
with nations. It is their nature to swallow up one another
and to aggrandize themselves by conquest and aggregation.
Rarely do they attain old age.
I have explained in the preceding book the first triumph
of the Borean Race. This triumph marked its adolescence.
It founded the Lamaic Theocracy and gave to the Indian
Empire a new splendour. Asia dethroned Mrica and took
in hand the sceptre of the world, but Europe, which had
produced the movement, was still nothing and this for
reasons which I have clearly indicated: that instead of
adhering to the movement of Providence, it strove to stifle it.
In this third book, I shall examine the consequences of
this first triumph, following the most noticeable phases,
and shall describe the important events which decided the
destiny of Europe.

133

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Digitized by Goog le
 CHAPTER I

DIGRESSION UPON THE CELTS-ORIGIN OF THE SALIANS AND

THE RIPUARIANS-THEIR EMBLEMs-sALIC LAW

THEwho,Celtsnotwithstanding
of Europe who persisted in the cult of Thor and
the opposition of Rama con-
tinued to offer to their savage Divinity human sacrifices,
regarded at first the schism which had taken place among
them as a small matter; they even gave to the followers of
Rama a name which designated less hatred than pity. It
meant to them a wandering people, Esk-wander. 1 This
name, illustrious through success and used in the course of
time by all people for a particular chief, became the generic
name for all heroes who distinguished themselves by glorious
exploits. There are few nations that do not boast of a
Scander. The first of all, Rama, has been designated as the
Scander of the two horns, on account of the ram which he
I have already said that the root ask, osk, esk designated a people in
relation to a multitude or army. The root developed also by the same reason
the idea of woods, on account of the multitude of trees of which it is composed;
thence the verb &cr~m~~, to eurcise, to plan a mCJ1UBflllre, and also to stir, to swarm;
from these again the words &cr~ecor, bushy, and cr~e,a, sluuk. From the word
ost in old French an army is derived, the word wander, united to the radical
esk to signify a people wandering or misled, came from the primitive wand,
a whirlwind; from this last root are formed the Saxon, English, and German
Wind, the French flent and the Latin flentus.
Besides it is from the radical osk, a people, that the modern French ter-
mination ois is derived. Formerly was said G8l-land-osk, for Gauls or Hol-
landers, the People of the Low Countries; P8l-land-osk, for Polocks, the People
of the High Countries, etc.
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136 Hermeneutic Interpretation
took for an emblem. These two horns have since been
singularly celebrated. They were put upon the head of all
theocratic personages. They gave the form of the tiara and
the mitre. Finally it is noteworthy that the last of the
Scanders, Alexander the Great, bore the name by which
these ancient heroes had been designated. 1
In the sacred books of the Hindus, called Pouranas, the
greatest details touching the conquests of Rama are found.
These conquests extended over all the inhabited earth. As
it does not seem possible that the life of a single man may
have been sufficient for so many events, it is probable that,
according to the manner of writing history at this remote
epoch, the first founder of the cult was credited with all that
was done by his lieutenants or his successors. However
that may be, one finds in these books, that Rama, under the
name of Deva-nashousha, 2 the Divine Spirit, after securing
the sacred island of Lank~. returned to the septentrional
countries of Asia and took possession of them. The holy
cities of Balk and of Bamiyan 3 opened their gates to him and
submitted to his cult. From there, crossing Iran, he went
towards Arabia which received him with homage. Mter
having visited Chaldea, which belonged to him, he retraced
his steps and appeared upon the frontiers of Egypt. The
Pharaoh who reigned there, judging that resistance would
be useless against a power so formidable, declared him-
self his tributary. The ruler of Ethiopia imitated the
Pharaoh's example. So that from the borders of the Nile
to those of the Ganges and from the island of LankA to

The name Alexander is formed from the ancient Stander to which the
Arabic article al is joined.
It seems certain that it is from this name, vulgarly pronounced Deo-natah,
that the Greeks have derived their Dio-nysta.
The city of Bamiyan is one of the most extraordinary cities in existence;
like the famous Egyptian Thebes it is hewn entirely in the rock. Tradition
traces the construction of it to the people of Gic.n-ben-GW.n, that is to say, the
Black People; two colossal statues are seen at the portico of this temple in
which an entire army with aU its baggage could be lodged.

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 All Subject to Ramaic Law 137
the mountains of the Caucasus all were subject to Rama's
laws.
The Occidental part of Europe, which the Hindu books
name Veraha, and the Oriental part which they call Kourou,
were likewise visited by the armies of Rama, and colonies
were there founded. The autochthonous Celts, forced to
recede towards the septentrional countries, encountered
wandering tribes with which it was necessary to dispute the
territory. A murderous struggle ensued. Equally pressed
on both sides, the Celts found themselves in a most painful
situation. Sometimes vanquished, sometimes victors, they
passed many centuries fighting to preserve their existence.
Almost always repulsed from the meridional coasts, cease-
lessly harassed by hordes of Tartars who were accustomed
to cross the Borysthenes, they enjoyed not a moment of
repose. Playthings of a pitiless Destiny, instead of ad-
vancing in the course of civilization, they receded. All of
their institutions deteriorated. Hiding their sanguinary
cult in gloomy forests, they became savage and cruel. Their
virtues even took on an austere character. Impatient of
any kind of yoke, irritated by the least constraint, they made
of liberty a sort of savage idol to which they sacrificed all,
even themselves. Always ready to expose their life or to
take away that of others, their courage became ferocity. A
sort of veneration for the women, whom they continued to
regard as divine, softened a little, it is true, the harshness of
their manners, but this general veneration did not last long.
An inevitable event came to divide their opinion in this
regard.
For a long time, as I have said, the women shared the
priesthood, and even dominated it, since it was from their
lips that all the oracles issued; the Druidesses presided at the
ceremonies of the cult and even at the sacrifices, and im-
molated the victims as their husbands did; but no woman
had as yet ascended the throne. As long as the military
chiefs were elective this was impossible, for the election

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138 Hermeneutic Interpretation
involved almost always trials by combat, but when they
became hereditary by taking the place of civil chiefs the
case was absolutely different.
It happened that a khan dying without male issue left
only a daughter. The question was to know if this daughter
should inherit the crown; some favoured the idea; others
opposed it. The nation was divided. It was observed that
in this quarrel the inhabitants of the fertile plains, those who
lived on the borders of rivers and seas, were of the first
party and sustained the absolute legitimacy of birth; whereas
the inhabitants of the mountains, who had to struggle
against the wildest nature, wanted the legitimacy of birth
only in the males. This was the reason that the first were
called Ripuarians and the second Salians. The Ripuarians
passed for effeminate and soft, and were given the name
of Frogs on account of their marshes. The Salians, on
the other hand, were called rustic and lacking in spirit,
and were designated by the epithet of Cranes, on account
of the heights which they cultivated. The two parties
seized these allusions and took as emblems these differ-
ent animals; so that the bull no longer appeared alone
upon the Celtic ensigns, but accompanied by frogs at its feet
or cranes on its back, the frogs to express that it belonged
to the Ripuarians and the cranes that it designated the
Salians. The bull finally disappeared and frogs and cranes
alone remained. The Ripuarians and Salians fought a long
time and their partisans vowed implacable hatred. The
The Ripuarians were thus called from the word ripa or riba which signi-
fied a bank, and the Salians, from the word sal or saul, which expressed an
eminence. It is from this word that the French words sault, leap, seuil,
threshold, saillant, projecting, and the ancient verb saillir, come; they all hold
to the root hal, hel, or hil designating a hill. At the epoch of the Etruscan
dominion, of which I shall speak later, the Sa1ian Celts provided certain
priests of Mars, whose custom was to leap while chanting the hymns to
this god. Their ensign, which was a crane, was ennobled, in the course of
time becoming the Roman eagle. The same thing happened to the frogs
of the Ripuarians, which, as is well known, became the fleur de Us of the
Franks.

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 Ripuarians and Salians 139

miserable Celts, having abandoned the ways of Providence,

went from division to division, from misfortune to mis-
fortune. The Celtic nation, properly speaking, existed no
more. Scattered about in the septentrional countries of
Europe, only fractions of the great whole were seen. Each
fraction wished to command; none wished to obey. Anarchy,
which was in each division, was also in each individual.
The names which they gave themselves expressed invariably
their independence. They were the Alains, the Germans,
Vandals, Frisons, Quades, Cimbri, Swabians, Allobroges,
Scandinavians, Franks, Saxons, etc., whose signification
may be found in the note below.
The movement of Providence was then in Asia. It was
there that the Borean Race had transported its force. We
shall now transport ourselves there for a while, before
returning to Europe.
The Alains or All-ans equals in sovereignty; the Allemands (Germans)
equals in virility; the Vandals, those who separate themselves from all; Frisons,
the children of liberty; Quades, the speakers; Cimbrians, the shadows; Swa-
bians, the haughty; Allobroges, the breakers of all ties; Scandinavians, those
who wander about in ships; Franks, the roysterers, those who stop at nothing;
SG:UmS, the children of nature, etc.

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 CHAPTER II

DIVINE UNITY ADMITTED INTO THE UNIVERSAL EMPIRE-

HISTORIC DETAILS--QRIGIN OF THE ZODIAC

AT the epoch when Rama made the conquest of Hindustan,

that country did not bear this name. Even today,
although it is generally received there, the Brahmans only
use it with repugnance. This name signifies the abode of the
Black People; it had been given by the first tribes of Iran
who derived it from a word in their dialect which signified
black. ' At this remote epoch, the name Bharat-Khant or
Bharat- Versh was used by the whole of India. This name
expressed in the Mrican dialect the possession or tabernacle
of Bharata. 2 Now this Bharata, a very celebrated person-
age among the Hindus, is claimed to have been one of the
first legislators, one from whom they received their cult and
their laws, their sciences and their arts, prior to the arrival of
Rama. The god which Bharata offered to the adoration of
the people was named WMha, that is to say, Eternity or the
type of all that which is Eternal; Eternal Bounty, Eternal
Wisdom, Eternal Power, etc. The Hindus of today still
recognize him under the name of Buddha, but greatly de-
generated from his ancient grandeur on account of many
innovators who have usurped his name. The name of this
Consequently a Hindu signified a negro. It is from this word that the
word indigo is derived and perhaps the English and Belgian word ink.
The name of Bharata may signify the son of the tutelary ruler.
140

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 Solar and Lunar Dynasties 141

ancient WMha is found in all cults and all mythologies of the

earth. Ordinarily the surname most given to him by
Bharata was Iswara, that is to say, the Supreme Being.
Thus, before the conquest of India by Rama, Divine
Unity was taught and understood there. This mighty The-
ocrat did not destroy it; but as it appeared that this Unity
was presented in its incomprehensible immensity, he united
to it the cult of the Ancestors, which he considered as an
intermediary hierarchy, necessary to unite Man to the
Divinity; and he conducted in this manner the intelligence
of his people by the knowledge of a Particular Being to that
of an Absolute Being. He named these intermediary spirits
Assour, from two words of his language which might equally
signify an Ancestor or a Prince. As to the visible objects of
Sabeanism, such as the sun, moon, and other planets, he
banished them from his cult and would admit there nothing
perceptible, neither any idol, nor any image, nor anything.
which could assign any form whatever to that which had none.
When he arrived in India, this country was subject to two
dynasties which the Atlanteans had doubtless established
there and which reigned conjointly under the name of Solar
or Lunar Dynasty. In the first were the children of the Sun,
descendants of Iksha11kou, and in the second the children of
the Moon, descendants of the first Buddha. The Brahmans
said that this Iksha11kou, chief of the Solar Dynasty, was son
of the seventh Menou, son of Vaivasouata who was saved
from the Deluge. 2
1 These are the words As and Syr, which I have already cited several

times.
By Menou is understood the legislative intelligence which presides over
the earth from one deluge to another. It is like a providential constitution
. which comprehends many phases. The Hindus admit the successive appear-
ance of fourteen MenotU; according to this system, we have arrived at the
seventh Menou and at the fourth age of this Menou. If, as I believe, one can
date the establishment of the Atlanteans in Asia from the reign of Iksha1lkou,
it should go back to about 2200 years before D~ratha. Nonnus names this
last Indian monarch, dethroned by Dionysus, Deriailes, a ll&nle which is not
far removed from that fiven him by the Brahmans.

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142 Hermeneutic Interpretation
The Rawhon, dethroned by Rama, was the fifty-fifth solar
monarch since Ikshatlkou; he was called Da~atha.
The throne of the Solar Dynasty was established in the
sacred city of Ayodhya, today At1dh, and that of the Lunar
Dynasty in that of -Pratishthana, today Vitora. Rama wish-
ing, as I have said, to remove from his cult all that which
could recall the idols of Sabeanism, united these two dynas-
ties in a single one. Thus it is that in the chronology of the
Hindus, no trace is found of the Lunar Dynasty, from Rama
to Krishna, who re-established it after many generations.
The first khan whom Rama consecrated to be the
sovereign king of the world was named Kousha. He reigned
over a great number of kings, such as those of Iran, Arabia,
Chaldea, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, and even Europe, who
were dependent on him. The seat of his immense empire was
in the city of Ayodhya. Rama established his supreme
priesthood upon a mountain near Balk and Bamiyan. As
he was given immortality, according to the Lamaic system
of which I have before spoken, the names of any of his
successors were not known. The Brahmans fill the long in-
terval which has passed between Rama and Krishna, by the
sole name of Y oudhistir, which signifies nothing else than
the divine representative.
Just as the supreme king reigned over a host of feudatory
kings, the supreme pontiff dominated a number of sovereign
pontiffs. The ordinary title of these sovereign pontiffs was
that of father or papa. The supreme pontiff bore that of
pa-zi-pa, the Father of Fathers. Wherever there was a king,
there was a sovereign pontiff, and the place where he always
lived was reputed sacred. Thus Balk or Bamiyan became
the place pre-eminently sacred, for the reason that the
supreme pontiff had fixed his residence there, and the
country round about these two cities was called Para-desa,
the deified land. One can still, when searching the places
which tradition has consecrated, recognize in the ancient
This name should be written W&lh-Ester, he who is in place of God.

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 The Zodiac 143
continent traces of the Lamaic cult, and can judge of the
vast extent of the Indian Empire.'
I allow myself to be drawn into historical details, which
perhaps will appear out of place, but I cannot, however,
refrain before the close of this chapter from relating an
hypothesis which I believe not to be devoid of foundation.
Thus, as I have related above, the Celts had already made
some progress in astronomy in order to have a regular
calendar; but it does not appear that they had arranged the
stars of the heavens by groups called asterisms, so as to form
the Zodiac and the system of constellations which we know
today. Court de Gebelin said that it was principally from
the observation of the ebb and flow of the septentrional ocean
that this people owed the regularity of their year. When
Rama achieved the conquest of India and his sacerdotal
authority was recognized by all the earth, he examined the
calendar of the Atlanteans and saw that it was superior in
many points to that of the Celts. He resolved therefore to
adopt it, especially in that which had reference to the
form of the celestial sphere; but, using his right as supreme
pontiff, he took away the greater part of the figures which
these earlier peoples had applied to the different constella-
tions, and designed them anew with such incomparable
sagacity and talent that he presented the zodiacal constella-
tions, which the sun passed through in a year, in a series of
1 The most celebrated of the sacred places in India are the island of LankA

today Ceylon; the cities of Addh, of Vitora, the places called Guyah, Methra,
Devarkash, etc.; in Iran, or Persia, the city of Vahr, today Amadan; those of
Balk, Bamiyan, etc.; in Tibet, Boutala Mountain, the city of Lassa; in Tar-
tary, the city of Astrakhan, the places called Gangawaz, Baharein, etc.; in
ancient Chaldea, the cities of Nineveh, of Babel; in Syria and Arabia, the cities
of AskchalA, today Ascalon; those of Balbec, of Mambyce, of Jerusalem, of
Mecca, of Sana; in Egypt, the city of Thebes, of Memphis, etc.; in ancient
Ethiopia, the cities of Rapta, of Me~; in ancient Thrace, Mount lllemus, and
the places called Balluln and Caucaytm; in Greece, Mount Pamassus and the
city of Delphi; in Etruria the city of Bolsene; in ancient Oscitania, the city of
Ntmes;in theOccidentalAsques, the city of Huesca, that of Gades; in Gaul,
the city of Perigueux, that of Bibracte, today Autun, that of Chartres.

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144 ;Hermeneutic Interpretation
emblematical figures perfectly distinct; the first having
relation to the progress of this planet and to the influence of
the seasons; the second containing the history of his own
journeys, his labours, and his success; and the third envelop-
ing, under most ingenious hieroglyphics, the means which he
had received from Providence in order to attain an end as
extraordinary as elevated.
This celestial sphere thus conceived was received among
all the people subject to the dominion of Rama, and he
delivered to them a wonderful book for their meditations,
which, after a long course of centuries, still causes in our
day astonishment or study for a host of savants. 1
The signs of the Zodiac, twelve in number, are the most remarkable of
anything in the celestial sphere; the others serve no further than to develop
in it the triple expression. It is in the invention >f these signs that Rama has
put all the might of his genius. That which bears his name, the ram, must
without doubt be considered as the first. But to what part of the year ought
it to correspond? If at the beginning, as it seems certain, it is necessary to
place it at the winter solstice, to this very night called by the Celts Modra-
Nect. Then, in examining the condition of the heavens, we shall see today
that this night falls upon Sagittarius, which gives a retrogradation of nearly
four signs, or 120 degrees. Now in calculating these 120 degrees, at the rate of
seventy-two years a degree, we find by the antiquity of the Zodiac precisely
8640 years; and this does not differ greatly from the chronology of Arrian,
which I have already cited. In following this hypothesis, it is found that the
sign of the balance, Libra, fell in the summer solstice and divided the year
into two equal parts. As Rama has been confused with the Sun, which is
also designated by the symbol of the ram, it has been quite simple, as many
writers have made it, to see the course of this planet and its diverse influences
characterized by the twelve signs through which it passes; but, in reflecting
upon the history of this celebrated Theocrat, such as I have described it, one
sees that it is well enough expressed by the figures which accompany these
signs. First, it is the ram, Aries, which flees, the head turned backwards, the
eye fixed towards the country it is leaving. That is the situation of Rama
abandoning his fatherland. A furious bull, Taurus appears desirous of oppos-
ing its flight, but half of its body, buried in the mire, prevents the execution of
its plan, it falls upon its knees. These are the Celts designated by their own
symbol, who notwithstanding their efforts end by submitting to Rama. The
twins, Gemini, which follow, express quite clearly his alliance with the
Turanians. Cancer signifies his meditations and his self-examinations; the
lion, Leo, his combats and particularly the island of LankA, designated by this
animal; the winged virgin, Virgo, carrying a palm in her hand, indicates his

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 The Zodiac 145

It does not enter into my plan to dwell upon the secret

mysteries which this book may disclose to the curiosity of
all; it is sufficient for me to have shown that it is neither the
result of hazard nor of a frivolous imagination, but, on the
contrary, of the intelligence of man in the vigour of his first
development.
victory. By the balance, Libra, is not the equality which he established
between the victors and the vanquished characterized? The scorpion, Scorpio,
can tell of some revolt, some treason, and Sagittarius the vengeance which he
drew. The goat, Capricorn, the water-bearer, Aquarius, and the fish, Pisces,
relate more to the moral part of his history ; they trace the events of his old
age and perhaps by the two fishes he has wished to express the manner in which
he believed his soul would be linked to that of his successor.
As it was in the environs of Balk about thirty-seven degrees latitude that
these emblematical figures of the celestial sphere have been invented, the
astronomers can see that a circle drawn from the side of the austral pole by
the constellations of the Ship, the Whale, the Altar, the Centaur, and the space
left below them, in the most ancient spheres, show exactly the horizon of this
latitude and give in consequence, the place of their invention.

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 CHAPTER III

CONSEQUENCES OF A UNIVERSAL EMPIRE-STUDY OF THE

UNIVERSE-IS IT THE PRODUCT OF AN ABSOLUTE UNITY
OR OF A COMBINED DUALITY?

THUSoverthethe Borean Race had definitely taken dominion

Sudeen. The remnants of the latter, repulsed
on all sides towards the deserts of Mrica, were about be-
coming extinct. The Indian Empire extended over all the
inhabited earth. With the exception of a few rejected
peoples at the extremities of the South and the North, there
existed for all men but a single cult, of which a sole supreme
pontiff maintained the dogmas and regulated the ceremonies,
and a single government, of which a sole sovereign king had
the jurisdiction. This supreme pontiff and this sovereign
king, bound to one another by the strongest ties, free without
being independent, lent each other a mutual support and
co-operated to preserve everything in a wonderful unity.
An edifice so majestic was not at all the work of hazard;
it had its foundation in the nature of things and received its
principles, forms, and developments from the simultaneous
action of the three great powers which rule the Universe.
Even as two metals become stronger when amalgamated,
the two races gave to the materials of the edifice more
solidity, by mingling the one with the other.
It is useless to say how much splendour this epoch of
human civilization had, and how much happiness it pro-
146

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 Music, the Universal Science 147
cured. The Brahmans, who described it as their third age,
did not weary of praising it; their Pouranas, vying with each
other, resound with the most magnificent descriptions.
Many centuries passed without leaving the least trace.
The happiness of man is like the calm of seas; it presents
fewer pictures and leaves fewer memories than calamities
and tempest.
But then, this was only the youth of the race; although
all was brilliant and ostentatious, nothing was as yet pro-
foundly beautiful; passions moreover were to be feared; and
this came to pass. Man had still need of lessons; he received
them.
I have described in another work the singular cause
which disturbed the harmony existing in the greatest and
most glorious empire that had ever appeared on earth; and
regarding this, I have entered into most minute details
which would be forbidden me here. This cause, who would
believe it! had its faint beginning in music. To understand
this, it is necessary to make a momentary truce to the pre-
judices of our childhood and understand what Pythagoras,
Zoroaster, Kong-tzee, Plato, and all the sages of antiquity
have said, that music is the universal science, the science
without which one cannot penetrate the intimate essence of
anything. This science was here, however, only the pretext
of the overthrow which occurred. The real cause was the
nature of Man which, constantly pushing him ahead in his
course, can leave him stationary on the same point but a
short time. His intelligence once shaken can no longer be
stopped; a profound truth moves him even unawares; he
feels that he is not in his place and that he must attain it.
Intellectual men are not long in becoming contemplative;
they wish to know the reasons of everything; and, as the
Universe is linked with their exploration, it is felt that they
have much to do and many opportunities to be mistaken.
I have already said that, at the epoch when the Celts
made the conquest of India, they found established there a

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148 Hermeneutic Interpretation
complete system of physical and metaphysical sciences. It
appears certain that, at that time, the Atlantean cosmogony
carried all back to the Absolute Unity and made all emanate
from and depend on a sole Principle. This unique Principle,
named Iswara, was conceived purely spiritual. One cannot
deny that this doctrine does not present great advantages;
but one must agree that it involves some disadvantages,
particularly when the people, to whom it is given, do not
find themselves in proper conditions to receive it. It is
necessary, in order that the dogma of Absolute Unity may
rest in pure spiritualism and not draw the people, whose cult
it is, into materialism and abject anthropomorphism, that
this people be enough enlightened to reason always justly,
or that it be shallow enough not to reason at all. H it
possesses only half-intellectual intelligence, then, as its
physical learning leads it to draw just inferences from certain
principles, the fallacies of which it cannot perceive, its
deviation is inevitable; it will become atheistic or it will
change the dogma.
Since it is proved that the Atlanteans had admitted the
dogma of a sole Principle, and that this Principle had been
until then in harmony with their situation, one cannot refuse
to believe that they had arrived at the highest degree of
social state. Their empire had embraced the earth, but,
doubtless, after having shed their greatest brilliancy the
lights had begun to be obscured when the Celts conquered
them. The Hindus, who had succeeded them in another part
of the globe, although their most learned disciples, were far
from possessing the same means. Their government still
progressed, thanks to the impulse which it had received, but
already the means were worn out and the principles of life
which had animated it had not reappeared.
Such was the condition of things many centuries indeed
before the arrival of Rama. It is evident that if this Theocrat
had not found the Empire of the Atlanteans in its decline
and tottering upon its base, not only would he not have so

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 Dogma of a Sole Principle 149

easily taken possession of it, but he would not even have

tried to do it, for Providence would not have willed it so.
He adopted, as I have said, the Divine Unity to which he
joined the cult of the Ancestors, and, finding all the sciepces
founded on a unique Principle, offered them thus to the
consideration of his people.
But it came to pass, after a lapse of time more or less
long, that one of the sovereign pontiffs, examining the musical
system of Bharata, which was believed founded upon the
sole Principle, as everything else, perceived that it was not
thus with it and that it was necessary to admit two Principles
into the generation of sounds.
Now, that which made music such an important science
for the ancients was the faculty which they had recognized
in it, of being able easily to assist the transition from the
physical to the intellectual; so that in transporting the ideas
that it contributed from one nature to another, they believed
themselves authorized to pronounce by analogy-from the
known o the unknown. Music was therefore a sort of
proportional measure in their hands that they applied to
spiritual essences.
The discovery which this sovereign pontiff had just
made in the musical system, having been divulged and
recognized throughout all the Empire, the contemplative
savants did not delay in taking possession of it and in em-
ploying it, according to the custom, to explain by its means
the cosmogonicallaws of the Universe; and soon they saw
with astonishment, that what they had heretofore considered
as the product of an Absolute Unity was that of a Combined
Duality. They would have been able, doubtless, without
being alarmed at this idea, to set all in its place, regarding
the two Principles whose existence they were forced to admit
as primordial substance, instead of regarding them as relating
to principles, even as Zoroaster did some centuries later; but
I have given great details on this subject as well as on all those which I
only indicate here, in a work on LIS Musigue which will be published shortly.

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150 Hermeneutic Interpretation
it would have been necessary to raise them to heights which
were still beyond their intelligence. Accustomed to see
everything in Iswara, they had not the force to dispossess
it of its supremacy, and they preferred rather to double it,
as it were, by joining to it a new Principle which they called
Pracriti, that is to say, Nature. This new Principle pos-
sessed the sakti, or the conceptive power, and the ancient
Iswara, the bidja, or the generating and vivifying power.
The result of this first step, which was of rather long
duration, was therefore to consider the Universe as the
product of two Principles possessing, each in its own parti-
cular, one the faculty of the male, and the other, that of the
female. This system, whose implicity attracted at first, was
generally adopted. One finds among most peoples these two
Principles invoked by a multitude of names. Sanchoniathon
called Hipsystos, the Most High, and his wife Berouth,
the Creation, or Nature. The Hindus possess more than a
thousand names, which they have given at various times to
these two cosmogonical Principles. The Egyptians, Greeks,
and Latins have an infinity of epithets to designate them.
Those that we use today most generally in poetry are
included in the mythological names of Saturn and Rhea,
corresponding to those of lswara and Pracriti. x
The names of Saturn and RMa. signify the fiery Principle and the watery
Principle. The two roots which compose them are recognized in the names
of the two races, the Sudeen and the Borean.

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 CHAPTER IV

EIGHTH REVOLUTION-DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSAL PRINCI-

PLEs-INFLUENCE OF MUSIC-QUESTIONS REGARDING
THE PRIMARY CAUSE: IS IT MALE OR FEMALE?-SCHISM
IN THE EMPIRE FOR THIS REASON

BUTEmpire
as soon as the dependent nations of the Indian
were authorized to consider the Universe as
the product of two Principles, one male and the other female,
concerning the nature of these same Principles, they were
unconsciously moved to put forth questions which the cir-
cumstances necessarily brought about. Since the Universe
is the result of two powerful Principles, of which the one
acts with the faculties of the male and the other with those
of the female, they asked, how can the relations which link
them be considered? Are they independent of each other?
Equally innate and existing from all eternity? Or ought one
to see in one of them the pre-existing cause of its companion?
If they are both independent, how are they united? And,
if they are not, to which of the two ought the other to be
submissive? Which is the first in rank, whether in order of
time, or in the comparative order of influence? Does Iswara
produce Pracriti, or Pracriti, Iswara? Which of the two
acts more necessarily and more actively in the procreation
of beings? Which is to be named first in the sacrifices, in
the religious hymns, when a vast multitude of people ad-
dresses them? Ought one to mingle or separate the worship
ISI

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152 Hermeneutic Interpretation
that is rendered them? Ought men and women to have
separate altars for each, or one for both together?
It is said, they continue, that sacred music presents sure
and facile means of distinguishing the two universal Prin~
ciples; yes, as to their number and their opposed faculties,
but not as to their rank and still less as to their sexual
influence. Thereupon, they interrogated the musical sys~
tern of Bharata, which, far from throwing light upon all
these difficulties, perplexed them only the more.
If the reader will recall what I said in the first book of
this work, and if he will consider the obstacle which arrested
the consolidation of the first age of civilization, he will see
that it is here, under the highest relations, the same difficulty
is presented. It was then only the question of governing a
miserable cave; at present it is a question of the Universe.
The forms are very varied; the basis is always the same.
Still, if persons little accustomed to reading the annals
of the world find trifling and even ridiculous these questions
whose calamitous consequences caused so much blood to
flow, may they kindly believe that these questions are of
tremendous depth in comparison to those which, a long time
after, and in the centuries not far from ours, have caused
ravages proportionate to the extent of the country which
they were able to invade. For, at the epoch when the
Indian Empire covered the whole earth, to what have these
difficulties which have tended to divide it been reduced?
To know whether the Primary Cause of the Universe, in
admitting that it had in it but one, acted in the creation
of things according to the faculties of the male or the female,
and in the case where this Cause was double, as the analogies
which were drawn from the musical science indicated, which
of the two Principles was to be placed first, whether in the
order of time, or in that of power, the masculine or the femi~
nine? And when this empire, divided, tom in every way,
One can see what I have said in regard to this in my work on 1A Musique,
book iii., ch. 3

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 Primary Cause: Male or Female? 153

was on the point of expiring in its last shreds in what was

called the Greek Empire, or more justly the Lower Empire,
to what end did the questions come, which for a thousand
years had ravaged the Roman Empire? To know whether
the light which certain fanatical monks, named Hesicartes, had
seen about their navel-compared to that which shone forth
on Mount Tabor-was created or uncreated? It is known
that several councils, assembled to decide upon this singular
difficulty, were divided, and by their dissensions facilitated
the progress of the Tartars, who under the name of Turks
took possession of Constantinople and put an end to the
Empire. I am silent,-as much for the honour of humanity
as to evade the prolixities, the numberless questions, each
more ridiculous than the other, that I could relate. A learned
reader will easily make up for my silence. Therefore it is not
according to any particular opinion that one would have,
that it is necessary to appreciate the questions of which I
have just spoken, but according to the general condition of
the mind, at the epoch in which they took place.
At first, these questions circulated surreptitiously through
the Empire and were propagated there by strengthening
themselves with anything irrefutable that their very nature
presented. The supreme priesthood whether it feigned to
ignore them, or examining, condemned them, equally irri
tated the authors. The disciples were multiplied on all sides;
and, when forced to speak in favour of one or the other, the
priesthood maintained the dominance of the masculine
sex over the feminine, the priority of the m~e principle and
its greater influence in the Universe; it was considered
tyrannical and its orthodoxy, which it was obliged to
strengthen with a certain legal force, became a deplorable
intolerance. The irritated minds, fermented in secret,
became excited and awaited only a favourable occasion to
burst forth.
This occasion presented itself; for opportune occasions
are never wanting when one desires and expects them. One

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154 Hermeneutic Interpretation
reads in several Pouranas 1 that two princes of the reigning
dynasty, both sons of King Ougra, having conceived intense
hatred for each other, divided the Indian Empire, which,
according to opposed opinions, was divided in their favour.
The elder of these princes, called Tarak'hya, drew on his
side the nobles of the State and citizens of the highest class;
whereas the younger, named Irshou, had for himself the
lowest class, as it were, the dregs of the people. This is
why the partisans of lrshou were at first named in derision,
Pallis, that is to say, in Sanscrit, the Herdsmen.
These Pallis, or Herdsmen having become famous in
history under the name of Shepherds, did not at first succeed
in their projects; for Tarak'hya, having vigorously pursued
them, destroyed their principal place of defence, which
they had established on the borders of the river Narawind-
hya and called from their name Pallisthan. It is very
probable that if the movement caused by Irshou in the Indian
Empire had been purely political, it would have remained
such and would have been stifled at birth. But whether
lrshou was really one of the zealous disciples of Pracriti,
or whether he believed it useful to his interests to become
so, he broke openly with the orthodox priesthood and de-
clared that he adored the feminine faculty as pertaining to
the Primal Cause of the Universe and that he accorded to
it priority and pre-eminence over the masculine faculty.
From that moment the aspect of things was changed. The
war which had only been civil took on a religious form. His
faction was strengthened by all those who had shared this
doctrine, whatever their rank might be, and covered in a
short time the entire face of the earth, of which nearly a half
declared itself for him.
My plan is not to describe here the numberless combats
1 Principally in the Scanda-pourana and in the Brahmanda.
The Sanscrit word Palli, analogous to the Etruscan and to the Latin
Pales the God or the Goddess of Shepherds, came from the Celtic pal, designat-
ing a long stick which serves as a shepherd's crook or a sceptre.

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 The Pallis or Shepherds 155
which were fought by the two parties; when, turn by turn
victors or vanquished, rising again and destroying a hun-
dred times the same trophies, they covered during many
centuries, Asia, Mrica, and Europe with bloody ruins. I
feel that I have allowed myself to be led too much aside by
the pleasure of retracing some extraordinary facts of this
ancient history, so interesting and so little known! Let us
come now to the principal results of the event of which I
have spoken.
The disciples of the feminine faculty, called at first
Pallis, the Shepherds, having taken for symbol of their cult
the distinctive sign of this faculty, called in Sanscrit Yoni,
were surnamed, in consequence, Yonijas, Yawanas, Ionioi,
that is to say, Ionians, and as for mysterious reasons that
it is useless to explain here, they had taken for ensign the
colour red inclining to yellow, the name of Pinkshas or PluE-
nicians, which signifies russet, has been given them. All of
these names, offensive in the mouths of their adversaries,
became glorious in their own and were received or trans-
lated among all the nations where they triumphed and
became quite as much titles of honour.
On their side the Hindus, their antagonists, remaining
faithful to the cult of the masculine faculty in the Divinity,
had also their particular appellations ; but as they triumphed
The name of Palli, changed into that of Blllli by the Chaldeans, Arabs,
and Egyptians, who sounded with difficulty the consonant p, has signified
according to the country and according to the times, governor, lord, sovereign,
and even God. It exists still among the: French in the title of bailli (bailiff).
The name of palace, which is given to the dwelling of a sovereign, is derived
from it. It is on account of this name that we have Pastor or Shepherd in
many languages synonym of a lover or a man lovable with women. It is
on account of the name Yoni, analogous to that of Ioneh, a dove, that this
bird has been consecrated to the Goddess of Love,MilydiUJ,Aphrodite, Venus,
etc., and that all the arts of luxury, all the soft and delicate inventions have
been attributed to Ionia. It is on account of the Phrenician colour called
ponu4u that the purple colour has been the emblem of sovereignty; lastly
it is on account of the red dove which these people carried on their armorial
bearings that the heraldic bird called the Phtnix, from the very name of the
Phrenicians, has become so celebrated.

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156 Hermeneutic Interpretation
more rarely in Europe these appellations and symbols
became much less common. However, one can recognize
on certain monuments their most striking symbol, which
was, by opposition to those of their enemies, the distinctive
sign of the masculine faculty. 1 The colour of their ensign,
white as that of the ancient Druids, caused the name of
Whites, to be given them, and it is under this name, trans-
lated in diverse dialects, that one can distinguish in very
ancient times the resistance which their adversaries-called
sometimes Philistines, sometimes I onians, sometimes Phami-
cians or Idumeans, according as they were considered as
Shepherds, adorers of the feminine faculty or bearing the
red colour-encountered in different countries of Asia and
of Europe.
This sign called Linga in Sanscrit, Phallos or Plwllus in Greek and Latin,
is recognized although disfigured in the order of Doric architecture in opposi-
tion to the Ionic. This symbol transforms itself ordinarily into the head of
a ram. The Yoni takes also the form of a violet and this is why this flower
consecrated to Juno was so cherished by the Ionians.
The white colour which was that of the Druids, as it has since been that of
the Brahmans, is the reason why in the greater part of the Celtic dialects,
the word white is synonymous with sage, spiritual and savant. One still
says in Germany wis white, and wissen, to know; Ich wis, I know, etc. In
English VJhiU and fiN, witty, wisdom, etc. It is presumable that the Argives
and Albains, that is to say, the Whites, were the adversaries of the Phoenicians
in Greece and Italy.

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 -
CHAPTER V

ORIGIN OF THE PH<ENICIAN SHEPHERDS-THEIR OPINIONS ON

THE PRIMAL CAUSE OF THE UNIVERSE-THEIR CONQUESTS
-NEW SCHISMS, WHENCE RESULT THE PERSIANS AND THE
CHINESE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MYSTERIES: WHY?

T HESE dissenting Indians, as has been confirmed by

all the Sanscrit legends, never succeeded in making
great progress in India, properly speaking; but that did not
hinder them on the other hand from becoming extremely
powerful. Their first great settlement was effected upon
the Persian Gulf; from there they passeq into Yemen,
which they conquered notwithstanding the powerful op-
position which they encountered there. The Bodohnes
Celts, long time masters of Arabia, after having resisted
as much as they were able, preferred to be expatriated
than to submit, when finally obliged to cede to Destiny.
A large part passed into Ethiopia and the rest spread
about in the desert and became divided into wandering
peoples, who were called Hebrews for this reason. 1 The
Phcenicians, however, having seized the dominion of the
sea which separated Arabia from Egypt, gave it their
name and came, as Herodotus said, to occupy the shores of
1 The word hebri, from which we have made Hebrew, signifies transported,

deported, expatriated, passed on the other side. It has the same root as the
word wbi, an Arab, but it has more force in that it expresses a greater
displacement.
157

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158 Hermeneutic Interpretation
the Mediterranean where they established the seat of their
Empire.'
At this epoch, the Chaldean Empire was overthrown.
One of the chiefs of the Phcenicians, known under the name
of B8Jli, made the conquest of Plaksha in Asia Minor, and
built upon the border of the Euphrates the celebrated city
of Babel, to which he gave his name. This BAlli, called
Belos or Belus by the Greeks and Latins, was, then, the
founder of the celebrated empire which has been called
sometimes Babylonian, sometimes Syrian or Assyrian. The
Hebrews, implacable enemies of the Phrenicians, because
they were issued from the Bodohnes Celts, driven by these
Shepherds from Blessed Arabia, and compelled to wander
in the deserts, the Hebrews I say, gave to this BAlli the title
of Nimrod to express the violence and tyranny of his usurpa-
tion. But it was in vain that they tried to arrest the torrent
which burst forth upon them. From the Nile to the Eu-
phrates all submitted in a few centuries to the yoke of these
formidable Shepherds who, although seated upon the throne,
kept this name that had been given them in contempt.
Upper Egypt resisted their efforts for a long period, on
account of the vigorous partisans that the masculine faculty
had there under the name of Iswara, Israel, or Osiris; but
the opposed faculty finally took possession on all sides and
the Goddess Isis, among the Thebans, and the Goddess
Milydha, among the Babylonians, were likewise placed above
Adonis. In Phrygia, the Great Mother Md, called Dindy-
mene or Cybele by the Greeks, deprived Attis, the sovereign
Father, of his virile force, and his priests could save them-
selves only by offering to him in sacrifice the same thing
which the Orthodoxy had elsewhere made the emblem of his
cult.
Such was in ancient times that influence of music, of
which so much has been spoken, without ever seeking to
r The Pouranas of the Hindus gave it the name of Pallisthan, that is,
Palestine, or properly speaking, Idumea or Phcenicia.

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 Allegory of Osiris 159

understand it. Thence the severe laws promulgated against

innovators in this science, and the efforts of the pontiffs to
hide with care the essential principles in the depths of
the sanctuaries. It was this more especially that made the
Egyptian priests, when forced to bow the head beneath the
yoke of the shepherd kings and obliged to feign sentiments
that they never had, dream of establishing those secret
mysteries where Truth, buried and reserved for the initiates
alone, appeared no more to the eyes of the profane except
covered with the thickest veils. It was in those mysteries
that they consecrated the incidents of which I have just
made mention, and because they could not openly testify
their sorrow respecting the defeat of the masculine Principle
in the Primal Cause of the Universe they invented that
allegory so well known of Osiris betrayed, lacerated, whose
scattered members stained Egypt with blood; whilst Isis,
abandoned to the most terrible despair, although crowned
by the hand of Anubis and suspected of having taken part
in this cowardly treason, weeping gathers the members of
her spouse and encloses them in a tomb, with the exception
of one which was lost in the waters of the Nile. This in-
genious allegory, which was received in all the sanctuaries
where orthodoxy was preserved by its partisans, is found
with a few changes of name in all the mythologies of the
earth. 1
The chronologists have experienced great difficulty in fixing the epoch
of the Phrenician Shepherds in Egypt. This appears to me very easy, as
one can consult facts and not be confined to limits that one cannot pass beyond.
We know by the sacred books of the Hindus that the schism of Irshou, which
gave birth to these Shepherds, took place before the beginning of the
Kail-youg, about 3200 B. C. Now these peoples, at first having settled in
the Persian Gulf, required many centuries in order to establish themselves
solidly in Palestine and to put themselves in a condition to attack a kingdom
as powerful as Egypt. They certainly began with the conquest of Arabia and
Chaldea. We know by the table of the thirty Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho,
preserved by Julius Africanus, that the Phrenician Shepherds produced three
of these Dynasties, from the XV. to XVII., of which the total duration was
953 years. The Pharaoh Amos, who vanquished them, mounted the throne

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16o Hermeneutic Interpretation
In the meantime, the orthodox Hindus, justly alarmed
at the success of their adversaries, and seeing their sub-
divided empire collapsing abroad, put all their attentions
upon defending at least the centre, by collecting there all
their forces. There appeared upon the pontifical throne
an extraordinary man who was compared to the first Rama
and honoured by his name because of the force which he
manifested. For some time he upheld this edifice about to
fall, but it was reserved for a greater man to arrest the down-
fall. Meanwhile the Yonijas were declared impious, ana-
thematized and banished for life. All commerce with them
was prohibited. It was forbidden the Hindus not only to
receive them, but even to go to see them in their own coun-
try. The red colour which served as their ensign was re-
garded as abominable. The Brahmans were obliged to
abstain from ever touching anything which bore this colour,
even in their greatest distress, and the river Indus was
designated as the fatal limit which none could pass without
incurring anathema.
These vigorous measures, perhaps necessary to preserve
the whole, had, nevertheless, the disadvantage of again
detaching several parties, which gave rise to a schism nearly
as great as the first. This new schism had birth in the heart
of the warmest partisans of the male principle and of the
most zealous defenders of its priority and pre-eminence.
Among the Iranians a man endowed with great force of
intelligence, named Zeradosht or Zoroaster, declared that

about 1750 years before our era and preceded by 130 years the famous Amen-
hotep III., who erected in honour of the Sun the colossal statue of Memnon.
So that, if one unites this 1750 years with the first 953 he will find that it was
about the year 2703 before our era that the Phoonicians entered Egypt, about
five centuries after the schism of Irshou.
According to the data, it can reasonably be inferred that the first Egyp-
tian mysteries were celebrated twenty-five or twenty-six centuries before
Christ. A tradition exists, however, that, at the time when they commenced,
the equinox of the spring fell upon the first degrees of Taurus, and this shows
a remarkable coincidence.

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 Zeradosht or Zoroaster and Fo-Hi 161

they were deceived in conceiving the two cosmogonical

Principles, Iswara and Pracriti, as relating to principles
and possessing one the faculty of the male and the other
the faculty of the female; that they ought, on the contrary,
to be regarded as primordial substance, both males and
both emanating from Eternity, Wodh; but the one acting
in the spirit as Principle of good and the other in matter
as Principle of evil; the first called Ormuzd, the Genius of
Light, and the other Ahriman, the Genius of Darkness.
Among the peoples who dwelt beyond the Ganges,
another not less audacious theosophist called Fo-Hi as-
serted that the first schism of the Pallis had had birth in a
misunderstanding, and that it could easily have been averted
if it had been examined; that the sexual faculties had been
wrongly placed upon two cosmogonical Principles, Iswara
and Pracriti, or Spirit and Matter; that it was Pracriti, or
Matter, which possessed the masculine faculty, stable and
igneous, whereas Iswara, or Spirit, possessed the feminine
faculty, volatile and humid. So that, according to him,
the Phcenicians were not schismatical in placing Matter
before Spirit but only in attributing to it faculties opposed
to those which it really has.
Zeradosht and Fo-Hi brought to the support of their
reasons proofs drawn from the musical science, which seemed
peremptory, but which would be quite out of place here. 1
They both flattered themselves to restore calm in the Empire
by satisfying in a measure the pretentions of the refractory
Pallis; their hope was equally deceived. The sacerdotal
caste, seeing further than they themselves the consequences
of their own idea, rejected and condemned them alike.
Zeradosht, more irritated even than Fo-Hi, because he was
more passionate, kindled a civil and religious war, whose
definite result was the absolute separation of Iran. The
peoples who recognized him as their theocratic sovereign
took henceforth the names of Parthes, Parses, or Perses,
They am be found in .the work already cited.
II

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162 Hermeneutic Interpretation
because of the name Paradas, which the orthodox Hindus
had given them in derision. These peoples, who later took
possession of the dominion of Asia, became very celebrated
there and very powerful. They had at different epochs di-
verse theocratic legislators, who took successively the name of
the first Zeradoshtt whom we call Zoroaster. The last, who
appeared in the time of Darius, son of Hystaspes, is the one
whose doctrine, recorded in the Zend-A vesta, is still followed
by the Ghebres. 2
The two opposed principles of light and darkness, Ormuzd
and Ahriman, are therein presented as equal issues of Time-
Without-Limit, otherwise Eternity, the sole Principe prin-
cipiant to which they are submissive. The third Principle
which unites them is called Mithra. This mediator Prin-
ciple represents the Will of Man, as Ormuzd and Ahriman
represent Providence and Destiny. This cosmogonical
system is united to the cult of the Ancestors, as are all those
belonging to the same origin. The Eternal principe prin-
cipiant is worshipped there under the emblem of fire.
As to Fo-Hi, 3 endowed with a character more pacific
and more gentle than Zeradosht, he did not wish to kindle
a new civil war in the midst of the empire, but departed,
followed by his partisans, and, passing through the deserts
of India which bordered on the Orient, he established himself
upon the banks of the Hoang-ho River, which he named thus
Yellow River, on account of the yellow colour which he took
for his ensign, to distinguish himself from the orthodox
I believe that this name, whose signification bas always been wanting, is
perhaps derived from the two Celtic and Phrenician roots Syrah-d'Oihl, the
prince, or the chief of the aggression, or the anny.
The GM!wes are the remains of the celebrated peoples whom Moses called
Ghibori,. and whom the Greeks have known under the name of Hyperboreans;
these are the sole descendants of the Borean People who have preserved the
ancient name to our day. They called the prince in whose reign the last
Zeradosht appeared, Gusta.sps. The Zend-Aoesta, translated by Anquetil-Du-
perron, is only a sort of breviary of the work of this ancient Theosophist.
J The name of Fo-Hi signifies the Father of Life. It is worthy of attention
that the two roots which compose this name are of Celtic origin.

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 China Enslaves Its Own Conquerors 163

Hindus, as well as not to be confused with the Phrenicians.

He collected upon the borders of this river a few hordes of
wandering Tartars, ancient debris of the Yellow Race, who
united with his followers, and he gave to them his doctrine
which strongly resembled in substance that of Zoroaster.
According to him, the two Principes principies are Y n, repose,
and Yang, movement, both issues of a single Principe prin-
cipiant called Tai-ki, Primal Cause. The two Principles
Yn and Yang give birth by their reciprocal action to a third
mediator Principle called Pan-Kou, the Universal Being;
there existed then three powers called Tieng-h.oang, Ti-h.oang
and Gin-h.oang, that is to say, the Celestial Kingdom, the
Terrestrial Kingdom, and the Kingdom of Man, or in other
tern:is,-Providence, Destiny, and the Will of Man,-the
same that I established in the beginning of this work. The
cult of the Ancestors was admitted still more directly into
the religion of Fo-Hi than into that of Zoroaster.
It is to this emigration that the Sanscrit books attri-
bute the origin of the Chinese Empire, which they name
Tchandra-Dou:tp, the region of the masculine moon, that is
to say, the region where the feminine Principle has become
masculine. The name of Tchinas, which the Brahmans
give to the peoples who inhabited it, does not signify abso-
lutely impious and reproved ones, as that of Yawanas, by
which they signify the Ionians in general and the Greeks
in particular, but only the schismatics. The Chinese whom
we call by this offensive name have not accepted it; they
name themselves and they name their own country Tien-hia,
that which is the most precious under heaven. 1
It is certain that of all the dismemberments of the Indian
Empire which were made at this time, doubtless none equalled
1 There exists a tradition important chronologically. One finds at the
epoch of the first astronomical observations among the Chinese, that the polar
atar, called Yeu-tchu, le pivot de Ia droite, was in the constellation of the
Dragon, which we designate as Alpha Draconis. This tradition, which we
assign to about 2700 years before our era offers a new coincidence which cor-
roborates all that I have said in a preceding note.

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164 Hermeneutic Interpretation
that of the Tchinas, either in extent or power; nor did any
other nation observe with more inviolable respect the laws
and customs of its ancestors, whose cult was never extin-
guished in its midst. It is today a very beautiful fragment
of the Universal Empire which has survived almost intact
the torrent of ages. Whereas Asia has experienced a host
of revolutions; whereas the weak remnants of the Indian
Empire have been the prey of thirty rival nations; whereas
the sceptre of the Phrenicians, torn from their hands by the
Assyrians, passed into those of the Egyptians, the Arabs,
and even the Etruscans; whereas it returned again into the
hands of the Assyrians to fall into that of the Medes, the Per-
sians, the Greeks, and Romans; whereas, finally, its remains,
escaped from the ruin of Constantinople, have been dispersed
into all the countries of Europe,-China has survived these
catastrophes, which have changed a hundred times the face
of the world and has never been able to be conquered
without the force of its constitution having immediately
enslaved its own conquerors.

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 CHAPTER VI

REFLECTIONS UPON THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE UNIVERSAL

EMPIRE

BEFORE continuing this historical exploration, which

assuredly gives to my first hypothesis a force more
than hypothetical, it seems to me important to record here
a reflection. One will ask, perhaps, why the empire of
Rama, whose principle was evidently providential and
whose foundations the Will of Man had laid in accord with
Providence, was not more durable. If the difficulty were
confined there, and it were not asked why it was not eternal,
I should answer easily; and if the difficulty were pushed to
the utmost bounds, I should answer still more easily. First,
I should say to those who may not know, that whatever is
of Absolute Eternity, GOD alone possesses it; for one cannot
admit of two Absolute Beings without implicating contra-
diction. The eternity which God imparts can therefore be
only a relative eternity the principle and the mode of which
this Absolute Eternity determines. All forms are in the
domain of time; time itself is but the succession of forms;
essences alone are indestructible because they depend for
their principle on Absolute Essence which can never pass:
for to conceive of transition, space must be conceived, and
how can space be conceived outside of Absolute Space?
One must then distinguish form from essence, time from
space, and relative eternity from Absolute Eternity. Form,
165

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166 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Time, Relative Eternity are emanations; Essence, Space,
Absolute Eternity are divine identities. All that which
constitutes these identities is immutable; all that which
belongs to these emanations is mutable. Forms succeeding
one another beget Time; Time gives birth to Relative Eter-
nity, but this eternity and the time which measures it and
the forms with which it is filled vanish alike in the Essence
which gives forms, in the Space which creates Time,
and in the Absolute Eternity which envelops Relative
Eternity.
Everything has its weight, its number, and its measure,
that is to say, its rank in the scale of beings, its own faculties,
and its relative power. Nothing can appear in elementary
life without submitting to the laws of that life. Now, the
first of these laws is to appear there under a form, subject
to the three epochs of beginning, middle, and end. All form
whose movement proper is not disturbed by foreign events
passes through these three epochs; but it is only the smallest
number that passes through without interruption. The
greater part of the forms are broken from the beginning,
few attain the middle of their existence, and still fewer arrive
at the end. The more forms are multiplied in a single
species, the more this species miscarries in its origin. Who
can count, for example, how many acorns an oak tree pro-
duces, all destined to become oaks, before another oak
grows from a single one of these acorns?
If among the three powers which rule the Universe,
Destiny obtained the sole dominion; if the Will of Man dis-
appeared or were rendered inert; if Providence were absent,
can one conceive what terrible chaos would follow this state
of things? All species, struggling against each other, would
declare an endless war; all would desire to occupy the earth
alone and to bring to a successful issue all the germs which
they scatter; so that there would be no reason why, in the
vegetable kingdom for example, the species of the oak, the
elm, or any other tree should not stifle all the others and

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 Will of Man Maintains Just Limits 167

cover all the earth. 1 But the Will of Man is there to main-
tain all in just limits, in the vegetable kingdom as well as.
in the animal, and to prevent noxious plants and dangerous
animals from multiplying as much as their strength would
permit. This Will, moved by its own interest, watches, on
the contrary, to see that the weak but useful species are
propagated and preserved, thanks to the care that it gives
them.
But although the Will of Man may prefer one species
to another and may cover with splendid harvests of com
or rice immense plains which would produce without it
only thistles or some other sterile plants; although it may
propagate the vine upon the hillsides, where only heather
would otherwise grow, and may lead many herds of tame
animals into desert paces where only ferocious beasts would
dwell; although it may bring all to a state of perfection by
cultivation, this Will, however, can in no way change the
intimate nature of anything nor take it away from the laws
of Destiny, from whose domain it is obliged to draw its
nutriment. All that which lives the elementary life must
submit to its laws. The annual plant cannot live two win-
ters; the sturdy oak must reach the stage of decomposition;
and, whereas the ephemeral fly lives only a day, the elephant,
that can live two centuries, is obliged like it to die.
Thus, then, Man can choose among the physical germs
or the intellectual principles which Providence places at
his disposition, those whose development he wishes to protect;
he can understand their proper faculties, their diverse vir-
tues, their vital force, their relative duration, and know in
advance what will be the result of his care. An agriculturist
Buffon made the judicious remark that Nature, which tends to organize
bodies as much as possible, emits an immense quantity of germs. This natural-
ist has made the calculation that if nothing arrested the productive power of a
germ, as the seed of an elm for example, after a huhdred and fifty years there
would be more than a million million cubic leagues of organized elm timber; so
that the entire earth would be oovered with organized material of a single
species.

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168 Hermeneutic Interpretation
knows well, for example, that if he sows a grain of corn he
will grow a plant only frail and transient, whereas if he sows
an acorn he will obtain a hardy and deep-rooted tree; but
he knows also that the annual plant will give him a prompt
and easy pleasure, whereas the centenary tree will make
him wait a long time for its fruit. His choice then will be
in either case influenced by his needs and will be founded
upon his agricultural knowledge; he will intelligently make
the decision. The position of the legislator will be exactly
the same as that of the agriculturist, if the one could unite
to the same degree the experience which enlightens the con-
duct of the other. This is almost impossible; however the
legislator, quite blind and inexperienced, who will throw
political principles haphazard without knowing beforehand
either the nature of these principles or that of the people
to whom he destines them, will not merit at all this title,
and will resemble the ignorant agriculturist who would sow
rice in an arid sand or who would plant the vine in a swamp.
Both will be justly considered fools, worthy of all sorts of
calamities that await them.
Now that I have thrown sufficient light upon the main
point of the question that I propose to solve, I will say that
Rama having received directly from Providence the intel-
lectual principle of a theocratic empire, threw the germ
into favourable conditions which hastened the development.
But this germ, the hardiest and most deep rooted of all of
its species, must submit, however, to the vicissitudes of all
things confided to Destiny, and, inasmuch as it had a begin-
ning of temporal existence, it must necessarily after having
attained its prime decline toward its death. I have shown
by several chronological allusions that the epoch of its
beginning could date back about six thousand seven hundred
years before our era. Now the first disturbance which was
felt and of which history has preserved the memory dates
from the year 3200 B.c. This empire remained then in all
the splendour of its youth during thirty-five centuries. At

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 Germ of Theocratic Empire 169
this time, the passions began to make themselves felt and
formed in its midst storms more or less violent. It survived,
however, notwithstanding the defections and schisms of
which I have spoken, and, for eleven or twelve centuries,
possessed the whole of India. It was not until the year
2100 B.C. that the extinction of the Solar dynasty and even
that of the Lunar dynasty which Krishna had established,
as I shall presently relate, having brought about its political
downfall, it concentrated itself in the sole religious existence
and placed its principal seat in Tibet where it still survives,
notwithstanding its great age, in the Lamaic cult.
If we consider that this cult, today more than eighty-
five centuries old, still rules over a great part of Asia, after
having enjoyed nearly forty-six centuries of the Universal
Empire, thirty-five of which were enveloped in a splendour
unmarred by any shadow, one will agree that its fate has
been fairly good and that one must not be either astonished
or distressed at its decline or at its impending disappearance.

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 CHAPTER VII

THE PB<ENICIANS ARE DIVIDED; THEIR CULT IS ALTERED--

FOUNDATION OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE-FIRST POLITICAL
CONQUEROR-NINTH REVOLUTION IN THE SOCIAL STATE.

NOWsketch
let us return to the Phrenictans, and continue to
in a general way the sequence of their history.
The schismatic Shepherds having caused the first divi-
sion of the Indian Empire, soon were divided among them-
selves. The flame of the fire which they had kindled must,
lacking exterior fuel, necessarily react upon themselves.
Although, at first, they agreed upon the principal point of
the schism, which was the pre-eminence accorded in the
Universe to the feminine faculty, they were not long in
proposing difficulties quite as serious regarding the nature
of this faculty. Many sects were formed, the greater part
of which pretended that this faculty ought not to be consid-
ered as simply conceptive but as creative, and that it ought
to be designated by the name of Hebe, which in Phrenician
dialect signifies love of the feminine. 1 This sect asserted
that, from the origin of things, there existed two beings,
Love and Chaos; Love, the spiritual feminine Principle;
The modem German word Liebe, love, has the same root as the Ph<Enician
word heleh; it is likewise feminine gender. This analogy is noticeable in all
words extending back to great antiquity. The word clusos opposed to that of
hebe develops the idea of all that which serves as basis of things, as dregs, waste
matter, the caput mortuum. Generally speaking all that which remains of a
being after the spirit has departed.

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 Phrenician Mythological Divinity 171

Chaos, the material masculine Principle. According to the

doctrine which spread, it was Love that brought order out
of Chaos and gave birth to the Universe.
It is very certain that the Phrenician sect which adopted
this cosmogony and recognized in Love, feminine Principle,
Creator of all things, was very numerous and widespread.
The fragments that remain to us of Sanchoniathon and the
Greek theogony of Hesiod are manifest proof of it. It is
a matter worthy of attention that this doctrine was not
very different from that of the ancient Celts from whom
Rama had felt obliged to separate more than forty centuries
before. It also happened, as soon as the Phrenicians ap-
peared upon the meridional coasts of Europe, that they took
possession of the colonies placed there by the Hindus upon
the ruins of those of the Atlanteans, and had no trouble in
becoming allied with the rest of the Celts still existing in the
interior of the land, on the septentrional coasts of Denmark,
or in the isles of Britain. So that they made a sort of fusion
of the two cults whi9h should be readily recognized in the
mythological book of both peoples. x
The Phrenicians, possessors of various kinds of ethical
and physical knowledge, but whose cult was destitute of
rites, made then a most unfortunate exchange. They
taught the Celts their sciences and received in return a mul-
titude of superstitions, among which human sacrifices were
of the first rank. As they had departed from the ways of
Providence and had fallen into those of Destiny, they could
only oppose it with a passionate and badly enlightened Will;
they abandoned themselves to these new superstitions with
more enthusiasm than those even who had delivered these
superstitions to them. Haruspices, augurs, divinations of
all sorts found place in their new religion. They adopted
the cult of Thor with all its atrocities, and became infatuated
to the extent of giving his name to one of the cities. This
1 It is sufficient to read the fragment which remains of Sanchoniathon and

the fables found in the Icelandic Edda to be convinced of what I advance.

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172 Hermeneutic Interpretation
was the famous metropolis of Tyre, in which they raised a
magnificent temple under the name of HerchOl.
This name, by a coincidence which should not escape
the sagacity of the reader, is found to have the same mean-
ing in Celtic as the Phrenician. However the words which
composed it had already something too ancient; they trans-
lated them into the more modem, Melicarts, the king of
the Earth. As for Teutad, whom they borrowed also
from the Celts, they gave him the name par excellence of
Moloc, the king, or that of Kr8n, the Crowned. 2 This be-
came in course of time the famous Kronos of the Greeks,
the Saturn of the Etruscans, from whom came all the other
mythological gods of the ancient polytlleists.
It is a very singular thing to see how these Phrenicians,
after having taken nearly all the mythological divinities
from the Celts, and having adapted them to their diverse
cosmogonical systems, later gave them back to them under
a variety of new names and presented them under an infinity
of emblems which rendered them unrecognizable; for the
thoughtlessness and the inconstancy peculiar to these peoples
furnished them with the most incongruous and extravagant
ideas, as is proved by the contradictions and remarkable
incoherencies of their mythology, which is preserved for the
most part by the Greeks and Romans, who sprang from them.
Their instability in this regard is as striking as the tenacity
and perseverance of the Chinese, their most decided antago-
nists. It seemed that the feminine faculty to which they
had accorded the universal supremacy worked upon their
versatile imagination. If it were a question of writing their
history, it could easily be shown that the multitude of
names which the Phrenician nations had at different times,

We know it from the Greeks under the name of Meliurtes.

The word Kr8n signifies properly a hom in Phrenician. But I have said
this was originally on account of the hom of the ram, from which were designed
all the sacerdotal and royal head-dresses. The Celtic word Krohne, a crown.
is derived from it.

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 Worship of Bal and Moloch 173

and which they had given to their colonies, have only char-
acterized the versatility of their ideas and the enormous
quantity of their cosmogonical symbols.
But not only, as I have said, were the Phcenicians divided
into a great number of sects which weakened them; but they
also had to struggle against several nations attached secretly
to orthodoxy, and over whom they held sway rather by the
force of arms than by the justice of their arguments. Among
the nations, the Egyptians were those who always bore most
impatiently the yoke of these Shepherd Kings, and who, as
their history attests, made the most frequent efforts to
throw it off. I have already said, it was to this secret attach-
ment to orthodoxy that those Mysteries of Isis owed their ori-
gin, so famous afterwards and which served as model for all
others, even to those which, on account of different changes
made in the cult, had quite another aim and quite another
form. However, notwithstanding this interior opposition,
as much religious as political, it was by no means Egypt
that first had the glory of throwing off the yoke of the
Phrenicians. The sacred books of the Brahmans state
expressly that it was upon the borders of the Kamoutl-vati,
or the Euphrates, that the masculine faculty having retaken
dominion over the feminine faculty, its syinbol was adored
anew under the name of Bd.l-Iswara-Linga. The peoples
of these borders returned thus into orthodoxy, but they
did not unite with the Indian Empire; they formed a distinc-
tive one, the duration and splendour of which were very
great.
It was from the heart of this empire that the first purely
political conqueror arose that had appeared in the Borean
Race. Up to that time all the wars had had as object,
either the preservation of the race or civil or religious dis-
This epoch can be dated from the erection of the famous tower of Babel,
which according to the observations of the Chaldeans sent by Callisthenes to
Alexander, dates back 1903 years before this conqueror, and places this epoch
2230 years before our era; about a thousand years after the schism of lrshou.

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174 Hermeneutic Interpretation
sensions. History names this conqueror Ninus, that is to
say the son of the Lord ; which caused him to be considered
in later times as the son of Belus; but Belus, or rather Ba.J.,
was the name given to the supreme Being, to the one whom
the Celts named Teutad, the Hindus Iswara, and the Phreni-
cians Moloch.
The first conquest of Ninus was that of Iran, which lost
then its primitive name to take that of Persia, preserved
by this country to this day. The dynasty, which the first
Zoroaster had established there, nearly a thousand years
before this event, was called Mahabad, that is to say, the
Great-Wisdom 2 ; it was purely theocratic. It was succeeded
by that of the Pishdadiens, or ] udges, kinds of Viceroys
that the Assyrian monarch gave them. This last dynasty
did not end until the accession to the throne of Kai-Kosrou,
whom we call Cyrus.
Ninus, after having extended his conquests well into
Scythia and as far as the Celts of Europe, turned his arms
against India and attempted to take the Empire of Rama;
but death surprised him in the midst of his vast projects,
of which his wife, who succeeded him, accomplished a part.
This celebrated woman, in order to testify that she took no
part in the schism of the Shepherds, and in order to gain
adherents among the orthodox Hindus, called herself Semi-
ramis, that is to say, the Splendour of Rama, 3 and took for
ensign a white dove.
But long before this epoch, there came to pass in India
a very important event, which was to have the greatest
influence over the destinies of the Universe. It is well to
retrace our steps a moment.
' Nin-Iah signifies in Chaldean, as in Pha:nician, the progeny of the
sovereign Being.
It should be written M4ha-w8dh, the eternal Power or the Great Eternity.
Today the Parsees, called Gh~bres, give their priests the name of Mob2d.
J The word Sem or Shem signifies a sign, a place, a name, or a brilliant thing.

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 CHAPTER VIII

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE INTELLECTUAL SPHERE-AN

OTHER DIVINE ENVOY: KRISHNA-oRIGIN OF MAGIC
AMONG THE CHALDEANS AND OF THEURGY IN EGYPT-
NEW ASPECT OF THE UNIVERSE-ADMISSION OF A TRINITY
INTO THE DIVINE UNITY

IT was evident that the schism of the Phrenician Shepherds

brought about the division and the downfall of the Uni-
versal Empire of Rama; and that it was necessary to find a
means of preserving the central force as long as it would be
needed, in order that the truths which ought to survive the
catastrophe should not be swallowed up with it. Providence
willed it, and an extraordinary man appeared in the world:
this man, born among the Shepherds, as indicated by his
name Gopalla,' was afterwards called Krishna, celestial-
blue, on account of the colour which he took for his emblem.
The Brahmans regard him today as one of the most brilliant
Manifestations of the Divinity, and place him ordinarily
at the eighth incarnation of Vishnu. It was generally
agreed that this divine man, seeing the deplorable condition
to which the rival sects of the Lingajas and of the Yonijas
had reduced the Indian Empire, and groaning over number-
less evils, which their fanaticism had caused, undertook
to make amends for the evil which had resulted from it, by
Gopalla signifies properly the driver. The Hindus in making his apotheo-
sis place him among the constellations. It is the {Jo6nrl of the Greeks, which
the Arabs still name Muphrid-al-Rami, the one that explains Rama.
175

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176 Hermeneutic Interpretation
bringing their minds to an intermediary doctrine, tolerant
in its principles, susceptible of satisfying the objections of all
parties, and fitted to remove their doubts without incensing
them against each other.
Krishna, they said, began by establishing that the two
faculties, male and female, were equally essential, equally
influential in the production of beings; but that these facul-
ties would remain eternally separated one from the other
and consequently inert, if a third faculty did not provide
the means of uniting them. This faculty which he attrib-
uted to Vishnu was conceived by him as a sort of median
bond between Iswara and Pracriti, so that if by the one was
understood the spirit and by the other matter, the third
faculty should be considered as the soul which operates the
union of the two. That being stated this great man went
further. He caused it to be conceived that the two faculties
which are shown independent and isolated in physical and
primordial beings, are not so in intellectual and spiritual
beings; so that each male faculty possesses its inherent
female faculty and each female faculty its male faculty.
Thus, admitting a sort of universal hermaphroditism,
Krishna taught that each cosmogonical principle was double.
Therefore, leaving aside the Absolute Being, WOdh, 1 as
inaccessible to the human understanding and considering
Iswara and Pracriti as the creative and inherent faculties,
he established three principles of the Universe, emanated
from this Ineffable Being, which he named Brahma, Vishnu,
and Siva, to which he added as their inherent faculties
Sarasvati, Lakshrni, and Bhavani. :a Such was the origin
The Brahmans named also the Absolute Being,Karta, the Primary Cause;
BanJflastou, the Great Being; Parasashy, the Sole Sovereign, etc. Its mysterious
name that they never utter for fear of profaning it, is 0. M. This name
composed of three letters, A. U. M., represents Vishnu, Siva, and Brahma.
These three divinities according to the doctrine of Krishna constitute but one
and are only the manifested faculties of Absolute Eternity.
The doctrine of Indian Theosophy, as I have just briefly explained, is
contained in the Pouranas entitled BapluU-Vedam, and Bap/uU-fhi/4. One

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 Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva 177
of this Indian Trinity, which under different names and
different emblems has been admitted or known by all the
peoples of the earth.
Among the three persons of this Trinity, the Indian
prophet chose Vishnu as the principal and offered him in
preference to the adoration of his people. He set aside, in
consequence, the symbols of Linga and of Y oni, which had
caused so many troubles, and took for his the figure of the
umbilicus, as uniting the other two and characterizing the
doctrine of the Divine Hermaphroditism which he estab-
lished. This doctrine had a prodigious success in India,
properly speaking, where its first effect was to restore peace.
Religious fanaticism became extinct there. Krishna con-
ceived at that time the vast design of beginning again the
Universal Empire. He dared to go even further than Rama
and to reinstate the Lunar dynasty which that ancient
Theocrat had judged fitting to interrupt and which had re-
mained so for more than thirty-six centuries; but the pro-
vidential movement did not go so far. The political ideas
could not follow the course of moral ideas; and the schism
which was made was too strong for the disunited parties
ever to reassemble and be united.
The veritable good which resulted from the mission of
Krishna after that of re-establishing religious peace, was to
give to India a moral force capable of resisting all invasions,
and of placing it at the head of universal civilization as
worthy to teach and to rule its own conquerors. So that
the conquest of this country was long considered as the aim
of an immortal glory, rather intellectual than physical.
All the heroes that a noble emulation urged into the career
of conquest, from Ninus to Alexander, coveted the sur-
name of vanquisher of India and believed thus to march

must understand by Brahma, the Spirit or Intelligence; by Vishnt~, the Soul or

Understanding, and by Siro, the Body or Instinct. SarfJSVati represents the
intellectual sphere; Lakshmi, the animistic, and Bharoni, the instinctive, and
that as much in universal nature as in particular nature.
xa

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178 Hermeneutic Interpretation
in the footsteps of Rama, the first Scander of the two
horns.
Ninus and Semiramis attempted to triumph over India
and after them Larthe Sethos made the conquest. This
Sethos having come from Etruria, as I will relate further on,
was seventeenth monarch after Amasis, the very one who
put an end in Egypt to the Kingdom of the Shepherds.
At about the same epoch, when these Shepherds were forced
to leave the throne of Egypt, about eighteen hundred years
before our era, they were likewise driven out of Arabia by
peoples tired of their yoke. These peoples, after becoming
independent, chose themselves kings from their nation, to
whom they gave the affectionate name of Tobba, that is to
say, he who does good. Thus the Phrenician Empire,
equally pressed on all sides on the continent of Asia and
Africa, was almost limited to the shores of the Mediterra-
nean and could only maintain itself by means of its immense
marine force and by its colonies, which subjecting the sea
always to their power rendered the rest of the world tribu-
tary to its commerce. Tyre and Sidon were at this epoch
the mart for the riches of the world.
Although it may appear strange that I allow myself to
stray into the pleasure of writing history, I shall again enter
here into some details. I do not wish to neglect, since the
occasion presents itself so naturally, to show how far from
the truth the wrong interpretation of the Sepher of Moses
has placed us, and how this interpretation has forced us to
mutilate the history of the ancient nations, in order to
enclose them in the most ridiculous and most limited of
chronologies, nearly in the same manner as the Greek myth-
ology relates that a certain Procrustes cut off the legs of
strangers so as to make them fit in his iron bed.
Here I believe are some important details. When the
Assyrian Ninus made the conquest of Persia, he found there
the doctrine of Zoroaster long since established, and thus
it gave the Chaldean priests an opportunity to understand

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 Magic, the Great Science 179

it. This doctrine founded on the two opposed principles

of Good and Evil singularly pleases men who give them-
selves over to natural science, because it readily explains a
great number of phenomena. The animistic men conform
to it. One also finds that it made great progress in Baby-
lonia. At this epoch the appearance is usually placed of
the second Zoroaster, who was the creator of that sort of
science called Magic on account of the Magix who became
savants in it. The Hebrews at .the era of their captivity
were initiated into this science, and also into the doctrine
of the two principles, and they gave to each a place in their
cult. It is through the Hebrews that we know about them.
There is nothing in the Sepher of Moses that may have
treated of the downfall of the rebellious Angel. Magic,
which is a kind of result of it, is, on the contrary, severely
forbidden there. This therefore is the reason why first the
Chaldeans, and afterwards the Jews, have been mentioned
among all ancient nations for their magical works and their
occult knowledge.
This is why Egypt, on the contrary, was celebrated
among these same nations for her theurgical knowledge
and her wisdom, and why her mysteries, where the prin-
ciples of things were revealed, were sought by the greatest
men, who often risked their lives to become initiated into
them.
Egypt, it must not be forgotten, was the last country
which remained under the dominion of the Atlanteans.
She always preserved, therefore, the memory of these peoples;
and, even when she came under the power of the Phrenician
Shepherds, she remained in possession of two important
traditions: the first which came to her originally from the
Sudeen Race, of which her inhabitants were considered a
part, and the second which she had acquired from the Borean
The word Magian signifies both great and mighty: this title was given to
the Iranian priests at the time of their theocracy. Magic was then properly the
great science, the knowledge of Nature.

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180 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Race, to whose cult and laws she had afterwards submitted.
She was even able by means of the first tradition, to go
back to an earlier one and preserve some idea of the Austral
Race, which had preceded the Sudeen. This first race, to
which, perhaps, belonged the primitive name of Atlantean,
had perished utterly in the midst of a terrible deluge, which,
covering the earth, had ravaged it from one pole to the other
and submerged the imniense and magnificent island which
this race had inhabited beyond the seas. At the moment
when this island had disappeared with all the peoples which
inhabited it, the Austral Race held the universal empire
and dominated the Sudeen, which was hardly beyond a state
of barbarism, and was still in the childhood of social state.
The deluge which annihilated it was so violent that it left
only a confused memory in the minds of the Sudeens who
survived there. These Sudeens only owed their salvation
to their equatorial position and to the summits of the
mountans which they had inhabited; for only those who
were fortunate enough to be upon the highest summits
were able to escape the destruction.
These traditions, which the Egyptian sacerdotal body
possessed almost exclusively, gave it a just superiority over
the others. The priests of Thebes had doubtless only
laughed with pity when after a number of centuries they
had heard the Greeks, new people, hardly beyond their
infancy, boast themselves to be autochthonous; speaking
of partial inundations as the Universal Deluge and giving
Ogyges or Deucalion, mythological personages, as the an-
cestors of Mankind; calmly forgetting what they owed to
the Sudeens, the Celts, the Chaldeans, the Phrenicians, and
the Egyptians themselves, in order to boast of their high
science; placing in Crete the tomb of Zeus, the living God;
claiming Dionysus, the divine intelligence, to have been
born in an obscure village of Breotia; and Apollo, the Uni-
versal Father, in a small island of the Archipelago. All
these things, and many others that I could relate, were well

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 Egyptian Priests Rebuke Greeks 181

calculated to authorize that priest to say to Solon: " You

Greeks are like children who strike their nurses. You
believe yourselves great savants and you do not yet know
the history of the world."

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 . CHAPTER IX '

APPEARANCE OF THE POLITICAL CONQUEROR INVOLVING THE

DESPOTISM AND THE DOWNFALL OF THEOCRACY-SEQUEL
OF THESE EVENTS-MISSION OF ORPHEUS, OF MOSES, AND
OF ro-m-FOUNDATION OF TROY

NINUS, the Assyrian, was, as I have said; the first polit-

ical conqueror. Thanks to him, and to Semiramis
who succeeded him, Babylon held the sceptre of the world
until the accession of the Pharaohs, Amenophis and Orus,
who gave it to Egypt about six centuries later. But, during
this interval, several remarkable events came to pass.
The Phrenician Shepherds were dethroned in Egypt by
Amasis, and were driven from Arabia. Some drifted into
Palestine; others established themselves along the septen-
trional shores of Lybia, for then the name of Lybia was given
to all the Mrican continent ; a large number remained in
Egypt and submitted to the dominion of the victor.
The successors of Ninus and Semiramis, however, seeing
all obedient to their orders, grew negligent of their royal
duties and gave themselves over to indolence. Aralios
and Armatristis were the first monarchs who lost sight of
their high destination, and who, forgetting that they were
the temporal representatives of Providence and that they
This name was given it on account of its form. In the Atlantean language
the word Lyb meant heart; thence the French word lobe. Africa has received
its modern name from the Celt Afri, which signifies savage, barbarous; thence
the French word affreux, frightful.
182

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 Calamitous Age-Origin of Pyrenees 183

owed the homage of their dignity to the sovereign pontiff,

strove to render themselves independent and to govern
their states despotically. Belochus, who succeeded them,
had even the audacity to lay his hand upon the sacred tiara;
and whether he profited by the death of the sovereign pontiff
or whether he hastened the last moments of the pontiff in order
to unite it to his crown, he declared himself absolute monarch.
This profanation had the consequences that it should have
had. The European colonies that he had crushed with the
weight of his tyranny and his pride revolted. They heard
the voice of their sovereign pontiff, in the sacred mountains
of Thrace, of Etruria, and of the Hesperides, and refused to
obey. The Anaxes of the Thracians, the Larthes of the
Etruscans, the Reghes of the Basques, all dependent until
then upon the supreme authority of the sovereign king,
profiting by this occasion favourable to their ambition,
threw off the yoke and declared themselves kings, instead
of viceroys. All the strength of the Assyrian Empire,
then very considerable, arose against them. The Phreni-
cians, obliged to keep up with the movement, furnished
them with ships; but the Arabs and the Egyptians made a
powerful diversion. The war kindled between Asia on the
one hand and Europe on the other, having Africa as an
auxiliary, was long and terrible. During more than three
centuries blood flowed unceasingly. In the midst of these
political troubles, it seemed as though nature herself, agi-
tated by internal convulsions, desired to add to the horrors
of war. The most terrible plagues broke out. Frightful
deluges inundated many countries; the seas overflowed and
covered Attica; lakes opened up ways through the moun-
tains of ThessaJy, and while whole peoples were carried away
by the angry waves, a copper-coloured sky covered other
countries and during the space of seven years left them
without a drop of rain or dew. Volcanoes became active
in many places. .lEtna flung forth its first clouds of flame.
A furious conflagration burst out in the forests of Gaul,

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184 Hermeneutic Interpretation
without any one knowing whence came the first spark.
Nearly all Italy burned. The mountains of Hesperia were
ablaze and took on account of this event the name of Pyre-
nees. For the first time the blood of kings .flowed about the
throne. Unknown wretches raised impious hands against
their princes and put themselves in their stead. The earth
trembled. Mounta~ were thrown down and whole cities
buried beneath their debris.
Wherever one glances, in whatever era one considers
these deplorable times, from the reign of the Assyrian
Belochus to that of the Egyptian Orus, one sees only dis-
asters and calamities. 1 These are the fragments of people,
who, clashing and fighting, pass from Asia into Europe and
from Europe into Asia, soaking the shores with their blood.
In the midst of this confusion, hordes of savage Boreans
are seen descending from the septentrional heights. They
come like birds of prey eager for carnage, to devour the
remainder of the Phrenician Empire now falling to pieces.
The sacrilegious audacity of the impious Belochus had
given the signal for all these evils.
Even India and China were not more tranquil than the
rest of the world; already China had been the theatre of
many revolutions. In India, the Solar and Lunar dynasties
having become extinct, in consequence of the conquests of
Semiramis, audacious warriors, with no other title than
their courage, with no other right than their sword, had
founded kingdoms more or less powerful. Without asking
the consent of the supreme pontiff banished to the moun-
tains of Tibet, they put the crown upon their own head
and thus risked losing it by the same means by which they
had acquired it. A certain Sahadeva in Magadha, a certain
Bohd-Dhant in the city of Sirinagour, were thus declared
If we place the reign of Ninus, according to the calculations of Callis-
thenes, at 2200 B.c., we shall have for the reign of Belochus the year 1930 B.c.
and for that of Orus about I6oo B.C.; hence itfollows that the interval between
Belochus and Orus is about three centuries.

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 Orpheus, Moses, Fo-Hi
kings; but their weak posterity, playthings of political tem-
pests, had frequently stained with blood the steps to the
throne; sometimes the prime minister of one, sometimes the
commander of the guards of the other had supplanted them.
The venerable Nanda, assassinated at the age of more than
a hundred years, was replaced by a man of basest extraction.
Such were the sequels of the schism of Irshou. The
powerful genius of Krishna had indeed been able to stay
the state of dissolution for twelve or fifteen centuries, but
the suppressed movement only became all the more danger-
ous. The Will of Man delivered over to Destiny must needs
follow its course. All that was possible to be done at that
moment was to preserve the archives of ancient traditions
and the principles of the sciences, so as to deliver them later,
when the storm had passed, to new peoples who might be
able to profit by them. Providence had conceived the
thought, and this potential plan was not long in becoming
action.
About fourteen or fifteen centuries before our era, three
extraordinary men appeared on the earth: Orpheus, among
the Thracians, Moses, among the Egyptians, and Buddha,
among the Hindus. This Buddha was at first called Fo-Hi
and afterwards named Shakya. The character of these
men, wholly dissimilar, but of forces equal in their way,
may be still recognized in the doctrine which they have left:
its indelible stamp has braved the torrent of ages. Nothing
is more beautiful in imagery, nothing more enchanting in
details than the mythology of Orpheus; nothing more pro-
found, more vast, nothing even more austere than the cos-
mogony of Moses; nothing more intoxicating, more capable
of inspiring religious enthusiasm than the contemplation of
Fo-Hi. Orpheus has clothed with most brilliant colours
the ideas of Rama, of Zoroaster, and of Krishna; he has
created the polytheism of the poets; he has inflamed the
instinctive imagination of the people. Moses, in transmitting
to us the divine Unity of the Atlanteans, in unfolding before

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186 Hermeneutic Interpretation
us the eternal decrees, has carried human intelligence to a
height where often it has difficulty in sustaining itself.
Fo-Hi, in revealing the mysteries of successive existences,
in explaining the great enigma of the Universe, in showing
the aim of life, has spoken to the heart of man, has aroused
all his passions, and above all has exalted his animistic
imagination. These three men, who share equally the same
truth, but who de\ote themselves particularly to bringing
out one of its aspects, if they had been able to be united,
would perhaps have succeeded in making known the Abso-
lute Divinity: Moses, in his unfathomable Unity; Orpheus,
in the infinity of his faculties and his attributes; Fo-Hi,
in the principle and the aim of his conceptions.
At the epoch when Orpheus appeared, Egypt dominated
the earth; she had humbled the power of the Babylonians,
had made alliance with the Ethiopians and Arabs, and had
forced the arrogant successors of Ninus to recognize not
alone the independence of the Phcenician colonies established
in Europe, but also those of the Phcenicians properly so
called existing in Mrica and Asia, under the diverse names
of Numidians, Lybians, Philistines, Idumeans, etc. These
colonies, having acquired their independence, were very far
from being tranquil.
Although three principal centres could be recognized on
the meridional coasts of Europe, from the Euxine to the
Pillars of Hercules, because of the three sovereign pontiffs
established on the Rhodope Mountains, the Apennines, and
the Pyrenees, the Thracians, Etruscans, and the Basques
were far from forming three distinct and perfectly united
powers. A number of small sovereignties were formed in
the midst of them, as different in name as in pretensions,
in extent as in force. Anaxes, Larthes, and Reghes were
endlessly multiplied. All wished to command, none wished
to obey; the sovereign pontiff was unable to make his voice
heard; no one listened; anarchy was complete. r Hardly had
It is to this time that one dates the origin of the name aMt'cAy.

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 Dardanus, First King of Troy 187

these little sovereigns been freed from the cares of fighting

the Assyrians, when they turned their arms against each
other. From the Orient to the Occident, and from the
Occident to the Orient, there was a continual movement of
petty peoples, who, seeking mutually to dominate, clashed
and fought turn by turn.
The historians and the chronologists who have sought
to penetrate into this epoch of the annals of the world have
lost themselves in an inextricable labyrinth. r In the midst
of these movements, which are of too small importance for
me to dwell upon, one, however, came to pass that I must
relate on account of the singular influence which it afterwards
acquired.
A certain Jasius, one of the Larthes of the Etruscans,
declared war against another Larthe, named Dardanus, who,
probably finding himself too weak to resist, invoked the
support of the King of Babylon, Ascatade. 2 Mter several
combats, wherein the two Larthes were sometimes van-
quished, sometimes victors, Dardanus, not caring to return
to Italy, ceded his rights to a certain Tyrrhenus, son of Ato,
relative or ally of the Assyrian Ascatade, and received in
exchange a part of the Mreonian field, where he established
himself with those of the aborigines who had followed his
colours. As for Tyrrhenus, he went by sea to Italy and
there obtained, following a treaty, the city of Razene, where
he founded a small kingdom.
This Dardanus was the first King of Troy, a small city
which he found built at the foot of Mount Ida, and which he
enlarged considerably. His successors, called Dardanides,
although always dependent on the Assyrian monarch, gave
great eclat to their name by leaving it to the strait of the
Dardanelles over which they ruled. Their capital city,
To evade perplexity they have called these times of tumult, heroic times;
it was, on the contrary, the time of decadence, when the obscurity of the in-
telligence was beginning to make itself felt.
I mention here that the name of this king, which is formed of two Celtic
roots, signifies Father of the People.

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188 Hermeneutic Interpretation
embellished by three centuries of prosperity, became famous
by the siege of ten years which it sustained against the
Greeks, and its fall was sung and is still sung by all voices of
Fame, thanks to the genius of Homer, who chose it for the
subject of his epic poems and allegories.

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 CHAPTER X

ORPHEUS, MOSES, AND FO-HI; WHO THEY WERE-THEIR

DOCTRINE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE AKPIDCTYONS IN
GREECE-oRIGIN OF THE CONFEDERATIONS OF THE NA
TIONAL REPRESENTATION-TENTH REVOLUTION IN THB
SOCIAL STATE

IN between
those times a very violent dispute having arisen in Egypt
two brothers who were both pretenders to the
crown, a civil war of long duration ensued. The one, named
Rameses, was on account of his ostentatious manner surnamed
Gapth, the Proud ; and the other named Armesis, was on
account of his gentleness and modesty surnamed D8nth, the
Modest. 1 The former becoming victor, obliged his brother
to be expatriated; and the latter, followed by those who
remained attached to his cause, passed into Greece where he
established many colonies. It is he whom the Greeks have
called Danails, on whose account many mythological fables
were founded. G6pth, whose name has been changed to that
of Egyptus according to the Greeks, gave his name to Egypt,
which before this event had been called Chemi or Mitm-ah.
It is presumable that these two brothers were twins and that they reigned
at first together without quarrelling.
It is here that the Ph~cian article ha, rendered in Greek by the article
4, which has been placed before the word G8pth in order to make it Jus..G~IIJ,
was changed afterwards to A!")'1111Tos. The modem name of the Copts proves
this derivation. The ancient names Chmli or MUs1alllikewise express in two
different dialects, compression or incapable of expansion, and allude to the
geographical position of this country.
119

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190 Hermeneutic Interpretation
It was with one of these colonies that Orpheus, of Thra-
cian origin but initiated in Thebes to the sacred mysteries
of the Egyptian priests, passed into Greece. He found this
beautiful country, as I have said, a prey to the double
scourge of political and religious anarchy. Favoured, how-
ever, by the influence of the Egyptians, and sustained by
his own genius, he accomplished in a short time what Pro-
vidence exacted of him. Not being able to reconstruct
upon the same plan a fallen edifice, he profited at least with
rare ability by the materials which he found at hand. Since
he saw Greece divided into a certain number of small sover-
eignties which would absolutely not recognize further the
supremacy of the Thracians, he persuaded them to unite in
a political and religious confederation and offered them an
assembling place on Mount Pamassus, in the city of Pytho, 1
where he gave great fame to the oracle of Apollo which was
already established there. The force and charm of his
eloquence, together with the phenomena which he effected,
whether in predicting the future or healing the sick, decided
all minds in his favour, and they furnished him with means
whereby to establish the Council of the Amphictyons, one
of the most admirable institutions that has honoured human
intelligence.
Nothing in antiquity has been more celebrated than this
Council, raised above peoples and kings in order to judge
them alike. It assembled in the name of all Greece twice
a year, in the springtime and in the autumn, in the temple
of Ceres, at Thermopylre near the mouth of the river Asopus.
The decrees of this august Tribunal had to be submitted
to the sovereign pontiff, residing on the sacred mount,
before possessing the force and dignity of law, and it was
not until after being approved and signed by him that they
were engraven upon the columns of marble and considered
as authentic.
' It was the ancient name of the city of Delphi, 10 called because of the
pythoness who uttered there the oracle of Apollo.

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 Amphictyonic Council 191

We see that Orpheus, no longer able to preserve the forms

of monarchy which the kings themselves had helped to
destroy, preserved at least those of theocracy, in order to
raise an obstacle which might arrest the invasions of anarchy
which excessive despotism and demagogy had equally pro-
voked. This Amphictyonic Council offered the first example
of the confederation of many peoples united under the
dominion of one, that of the Hellenes, and created a political
innovation of greatest importance-that of national repre-
sentation, as its name readily expresses. How fortunate
it would have been could he have surrounded himself with
a force sufficient to prevent the turbulent attempts of several
cities, which, to give themselves an absolute liberty, op-
pressed others and gave rise to a new form of legitimate
slavery, of which I shall have occasion to speak further on. 2
But the evil already conceived in the heart of man and
served by all the power of Destiny, was inevitable. Orpheus
could only retard the outbreak, and prepare at a distance
the remedy which would arrest the effects of it.
I shall not expatiate further upon the doctrine of Or-
pheus; I have spoken sufficiently in other works of it, so that
I may in this one dispense with useless repetitions. It is
shown in all that the ancients have left us regarding this
man, so justly admired, that he was the creator of the musical
system of the Greeks and that he was the first to use the
rhythm rendered illustrious by Homer. If Greece has sur-
passed all other nations of the world in the culture of the
fine arts, if she has opened to us the course of moral, polit-
ical, and philosophical sciences, it is to Orpheus that she
has owed this advantage. Orpheus has produced Pythago-
ras and it is to Pythagoras that Europe has owed Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, and their numerous disciples. It appears
1 This name is composed of two Greek words, Alu/>l and xBw: it signifies

properly that which makes one country of several or one people of many people.
In the seventh book of this work, Chap. III. I do not think I ought here
to break the historical thread.

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
that Orpheus taught, as Krishna, the divine Hermaphrodit-
ism and that he concealed the cosmogonical principles in a
Sacred Triad. His ideas were the same as those of the
Indian prophet; he abhorred, as the latter did, bloody sacri-
fices. The attempts which he made to substitute the mys-
teries of Bacchus for those of Ceres became calamitous for
him. It appears that even the Ionians, that is to say, the
ancient partisans of the feminine faculty, having gathered
their forces against him, succeeded in crushing him, that is
at least according to the tradition preserved in a collection
of fables, where it is related that Orpheus was tom by furious
women who were opposed to the innovations which he
desired to bring into their cult. Be that as it may, his
institution survived him and his disciples, called Eumolpides,
that is, the perfect ones, rendered Greece illustrious for a
long time.

1 Aristotle has preserved for us on the subject of the divine Hermaphrodit-

ism this beautiful verse from Orpheus:

Zel)f 4ptrqr "'flllfTo, Zel)f 4p./Jpo-ror lw>.no r6J.Ufnt.
Zeus is the Immortal Bridegroom and Spouse.
This doctrine was received by all the earth, but each state, in receiving it,
proclaimed itself the sole and true possessor of the umbilicus, that is to say, of
the central point of which it was the emblem. The city of Delphi disputed this
honour with that of Thebes in Egypt, as the latter had disputed it with the
famous temple of Shakanadam and with the sacred island of LankA.
As to the Sacred Triad of Krishna, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, it is evident
that the ideas varied greatly concerning the rank, attributes, and degree of
power of each of these three divinities. Sometimes one saw in Vishnu an
aqueous fiuid,aerial or fiery; sometimes Brahma was confused with light or ether,
and Siva with fire or earth. Osiris, Orus, Typhon among the Egyptians; Zeus,
Dionysus, Aides among the Greeks; Jupiter, Bacchus, Pluto, or Vejuois among
the Latins have not by any means represented their models; they have fre-
quently even been confused; but one has always been able to recognize their
common origin through the variations which they have experienced and to see
that produced by two opposed principles, male and female, they could be
brought back to an absolute principle, inaccessible to all research, called W&lh
or Karla by the Hindus; Kneph or Chno11n by the Egyptians; Phanes, Faunus,
Pan, Jan, Zan, Janus, or Ja8 by the Romans and the Greeks. One finds some-
times the Indian Trinity represented by Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. The
three altars of these gods are often seen united in Rome.

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 Moses 193
The name of Orpheus, which signifies the Healer, the
enlightened Physician, indicates a title given to this theocrat
on account of the services that he rendered to his native
country. It is probable that it was the name of some mytho-
logical personage, perhaps that of .tEsculapius, whose legend
in the course of time became blended with his history.
This remark applies equally to Moses, whose name signifies
on the contrary, the Rescued.
Moses, raised at the court of the Egyptian Pharoah,
initiated into the sacred mysteries, passed early into Ethi-
opia because of a murder that he had committed. It was
there that he learned the primitive tradition of the Atlan-
teans regarding Divine Unity and that he found a part of
those Arab tribes whom the Phrenician Shepherds had
driven from Yemen, as I have already related. These
Arabs, issues of a mixture of Atlanteans and of Bodohnes
Celts, had all manner of reasons for detesting these Shepherds
with whom they had preserved the name of Philistines.
Scattered through Ethiopia as in Egypt they were very
unhappy there. Moses had been born among them. He
was wandering, he was welcomed by them. Misfortune
drew them together. It is well known how this divine man,
called by Providence to such a high destiny, was reduced
to guard the flocks of Jethro, whose daughter Zephora he
espoused.
Jethro was one of the priests of the expatriated Arabs
of whom I have just made mention. They were named
Hebrews for the reason I have given. Jethro knew the
traditions of his ancestors and he taught them to Moses.
Perhaps he had preserved some genethlialogical books rela-
tive to the Atlanteans; he gave them to him. The book of
the Generations of Adam, that of the Wars of Jehovah, that
of the Prophecies are cited by Moses. The young theocrat
penetrated all these things and meditated long upon them.
At last, while in the desert, he obtained his first inspiration.
The God of his fathers, who named Himself Jehovah, the
13

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194 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Being of Beings, made him hear His voice from the midst of
a burning bush.
I shall not insist at all upon the mysterious and secret
meaning of the Sepher of Moses, since I have said elsewhere
many things upon this subject.' What I shall add here as
having particularly to deal with the matter I have in hand
is that Moses after having related the legend of Elohim, the
Being of Beings, related afterwards that of Noah, the Repose
of Nature; that of Abraham, the Sublime Father; that of
Moses, the Rescued, with which he skilfully mingles his own,
leaving to Joshua, the Saviour, whom he chose theocratically
to succeed him, the care of finishing his work. So that the
origins, which he seemed to give to his people and which
he gives to himself by the manner in which he links these
legends to his own history, are purely allegorical; they attach
themselves to cosmogonical subjects infinitely more im-
portant and go back to epochs infinitely more remote.
Such was the method which the ancient sages followed,
and such was that of Moses. The Sepher of this extraordi-
nary man having come down to us complete by favour of the
triple veil, with which he has covered it, has brought us the
most ancient tradition which exists today on earth. It
reaches not only the epoch of the primitive Atlanteans, but
going beyond the catastrophe of which they were the victims,
transports itself through the immensity of centuries to the
first principles of things, which is given in detail under the
form of a divine decree emanated from the Eternal Wisdom.
The Hebrews were not at all a remnant of the Phreni-
cian Shepherds, as some writers have believed, since these
shepherds had no deadlier enemies. This people was the
result of a first mixture made in Arabia between the Sudeen
blood and the Borean. Their opposition to the Ionian
doctrine constrained them at first to abandon their native
land. Persecuted in Egypt and in Abyssinia, they be-
came intolerant themselves there. The doctrine of Krishna
' In my work on La Langue 118waigue remt.U.

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 Hebraic Sacred Archives ,Preserved 195

having found them as refractory as that of Irshou, they

were considered unsociable men whose stubborn character
would not flinch, and they were relegated to the deserts
as a sort of impure pariahs. It was there that Moses found
them, and, having seized them in their own ideas, he led
them to the conquest of Palestine through a multitude of
obstacles that his genius surmounted. This people, whom
Moses calls stiff-necked people, were those whom Providence
entrusted with the sacred archives of which I have spoken.
These archives, of which the Hebrews have rarely known
the true worth, have traversed intact the torrent of ages,
have braved the effort of water, fire, and sword; thanks to
the ignorant but sturdy hands which guarded them.
The names of Orpheus and Moses are, as I have an-
nounced, titles resulting rather from their doctrine than
from their own names. Other men may have had these
names before them, and that is what has thrown some con-
fusion into their history. As to Fo-Hi, surnamedBuddha
or Shakya, his original name is also known as is that of
Krishna. I have said that the latter was called G8palla.
The real name of Fo-Hi was Sougot. He did not take that
of Fo-Hi until after his vocation. This is how the Hindus
relate his first inspiration. The young Sougot, they said,
while on Solitary Mountain where he had taken refuge to
escape the wrath of his father, who wished him to marry,
and while gazing upon the morning star, fell into a sort of
ecstasy, during which heaven opened before his eyes. He
saw then the Essence of the First Principle. Ineffable mys-
teries were revealed to him. Recovering from the astonish-
ment into which this vision had thrown him, he took the
name of Fo-Hi, the Living Father, and began to establish
the foundations of his cult. He was surnamed afterwards
Buddha, the Eternal Wisdom, and Shakya, the Being always
existing.
The pariahs constitute in India a caste of reprobate men who are for-
bidden to Jive in the society of other men.

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196 Hermeneutic Interpretation
The essential points of his doctrine are reduced to the
following: the souls of men and animals are of the same
essence; they differ from each other only according to the
body which they animate and are likewise immortal. Human
souls, . alone free, are rewarded or punished, according to
their good or evil actions.
The place where virtuous souls enjoy eternal pleasure is
governed by Amida, the principle of Good, who regulates
ranks according to the sanctity of men. Each inhabitant
of this happy place, in whatever rank he may be, deceives
himself with the sweet illusion of thinking that his lot is the
best, and he in no wise envies the felicity of others. All
sins are effaced there by the mercy and mediation of Amida.
No distinction is made between women and men; the two
sexes enjoy the same advantages according to the doctrine
of Krishna.
There is no everlasting punishment in the place reserved
for evildoers. Guilty souls are tormented there only in
proportion to the crimes they have committed, and their
torments are more or less long according to the intensity of
their crimes. They may even receive some alleviation by
the prayers and good deeds of their relatives and friends and
the merciful Amida can appease Yama, the Genius of evil,
supreme monarch of the infernal regions. When these souls
have expiated their crimes, they are sent back to earth, pass-
ing into the bodies of unclean animals, whose inclinations
accord with their former vices. Their transmigration is made
then from the vilest animals to the noblest, until after
perfect purification they are worthy to re-enter human
bodies, when they pass through the same course which they
have already gone over and submit to the same tests.
It was in order to spare themselves these reiterated tests, that the followers
of Fo-Hi, being resolved not to live again upon the earth, have exaggerated the
moral principles of their prophet and by a spirit of penitence have carried self-
abnegation to an almost unbelievable excess. It is not a rare thing today,
even after more than three thousand years of existence, to see fanatics of thls
cult, 80 tolerant and 80 gentle, become their own executioners and give them-

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 Cult of Fo-Hi 197
The cult of Fo-Hi is only a sort of corollary of that of
Rama and is easily amalgamated with it. Nearly all the
Lamas are today Buddhists, so that it can be admitted
without error that it is one of the most diffused cults on the
face of our hemisphere. The system of metempsychosis
was born of it, and all those who have received it from
Pythagoras have but followed the ideas of Fo-Hi.
selves up to a death more or less painful or violent: some with a stone at the
neck throw themselves into the water; others bury themselves alive; some
sacrifice themselves in the crater of volcanoes; others expose themselves to a
slow death upon rocks arid and burned by the sun; the less fervent condemn
themselves to receive, in the heart of the winter, on their naked bodies, one
hundred pitchers of iced water; they prostrate themselves to the earth a
thousand times a day, striking each time the pavement with their foreheads;
they undertake barefooted, perilous journeys over sharp pebbles, among the
brambles, along roads strewn with dangers; they suspend themselves over
frightful abysses. It is not unusual to see in public ceremonies a throng of
these devout Buddhists placing themselves to be crushed by the wheels of
chariots or horses' feet. Thus do extremes meet. The merciless Thor and the
gentle and beneficent Amida have both had their devout victims: how difficult
it is to recognize the golden mean where alone reside Truth, Wisdom, Virtue!

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 CHAPTER XI

WHAT WAS THE Ani OF THE MISSION OF ORPHEUS, MOSES,

FO-m?-POUTICAL AND MORAL MOVEMENT OF THE
WORLD DURING THE SPACE OF ABOUT A THOUSAND YEARS
-APPEARANCE OF PYTHAGORAS AND OF MANY OTHER
GREAT MEN

THUSunableProvidence, in its inexhaustible goodness, being

to prevent the dissolution of the Universal
Empire that it had raised by the hands of Rama, desired at
least to moderate its consequences and to preserve in its
principal fragments as much force and harmony as was
possible, in order to be able to employ them later when the
time for it should arrive for the erection of a new edifice
still greater and more beautiful than the first.
Here are the reasons which determined the mission of
Orpheus, Moses, and Fo-Hi. These three men, very dis-
similar, adapted themselves with wonderful sagacity to the
peoples and circumstances which demanded them. These
circumstances were such that the three great powers which
ruled the Universe, having united their action during a long
space of time in the empire of Rama, now separated it,
but in such a way that while Destiny remaining almost
sole master in Asia and in Africa, and the Will of Man ready
to dominate all Europe, Providence, obliged to retire, could
preserve here and there only a few circumscribed points
bidden in obscurity. Orpheus, destined to restrain the
Ig8

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 Mission of Moses 199
passions of the Will, seized it by the imagination, and,
offering it the enchanting cup of voluptuousness, induced it
by the prestige of the fine arts, by the charm of poetry and
of music, by the splendour and majesty of ceremonies to
draw from its mysteries moral lessons and universal know-
ledge that could no longer be left to the multitude which
would have profaned them. Since the political bond had
become loosened, it was necessary that that of religion and
philosophy should become proportionately tightened.
On the other hand Fo-Hi, whose intellectual influence
was opposed to that which the fatality of Destiny held most
rigidly, offered the compensations of a future life, and
showed that the action of this power, so terrible in appear-
ance, was closed within very narrow limits, and that the Will
of Man, by yielding to it in the course of a passing life, could
escape from it for eternity. He showed besides, that the
men most favoured by this power were always the most
exposed, and that the splendour and the pomp of its gifts
concealed dangers so much the greater as their possessors
were disposed to abuse them. As it was in Asia that abso-
lute despotism established itself because the kings, not
content in escaping everywhere from the sacerdotal domin-
ion, had again usurped the power of the sovereign pontiff,
it was necessary to lighten as much as possible the yoke
with which they burdened the mass of the people and to
show at the same time to these imprudent monarchs the
perilous situation in which they were.
As for Moses, his mission was limited to preserving the
cosmogonical principles of all the races and to conceal as in
a holy ark the germs of all future institutions. The people
to whom he confided the keeping of this ark were a plain
but sturdy people, whose strength was still more augmented
by his exclusive legislation. The forms of his government
did not matter; it sufficed, in order that the views of Pro-
vidence might be fulfilled, that its fusion with another
government should not be able to take place.

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200 Hermeneutic Interpretation
If the reader has clearly understood what I have just
said, he must realize how very important was this epoch of
the social state. Three principles long blended in Unity,
being divided, gave birth to three entirely new forms of
government. In Asia, the mass of people, having submitted
to the individual, suffered despotism under the laws of
Destiny; in Europe, the individual, having submitted to
the mass, gave way before democracy and followed the im-
pulse of the Will of Man; in Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and
above all, in Palestine, a sort of intellectual power, deprived
of force and of apparent means, governed invisibly peoples
indiscriminately a prey to all forms of government, fluctuat-
ing between a thousand whims and a thousand diverse
opinions, and changing at the will of these caprices the
most sublime verities into superstitions and puerile
practices.
Mter the civil war which broke out in Egypt between
Armesis and Rameses, surnamed D8nth and G8pth, or
Danails and Egyptus, and whose result had been the ex-
patriation of Danaiis and the passage into Greece of a
great number of Egyptian colonies, this country had lost
a great part of its strength; so that, after the weak reign of
the second Amenophis, it fell under the dominion of the
Etruscans. We know hy a very curious fragment of
Manetho that the famous Sethos was not of Egyptian origin,
since he did not bear upon the throne the title of Pharaoh,
but that of Larthe, which was the title that belonged to the
sovereigns of Etruria. The dynasty of this Sethos, who
reigned over Egypt and who made a temporary conquest of
Arabia and India, furnished six Larthes, the last of whom,
called Thuoris, died the same year that Troy was taken by
the Greeks.
Mter some internal dissensions, the Egyptians succeeded,
however, in resuming their sway, but they were soon de-
spoiled of it by the Lydians who took possession of the
Empire of the seas. These Lyd.ians became for some time

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 Greek Colonies 201

what the Phrenicians, from whom they were descended, had

been; but as things were, nothing could last. At the end
of several centuries, it was the Rhodians who had replaced
them.
The same revolutions which took place at Memphis and
at Sardis followed also at Babylon. The Empire of the
Assyrians, heretofore so flourishing, had become so infirm,
that Teutamos who still held the title of King of Kings,
could not defend Priam against the Greeks, although this
monarch had implored his assistance, according to what
Diodorus relates. The siege of Troy was celebrated in
antiquity for precisely this cause. It seemed astonishing
that certain weak tribes hardly escaped from the yoke of the
Thracians should dare to besiege a royal city, placed under
the protection of the King of Kings, without either Nineveh
or Babylon, although almost within sight, being able to
oppose its conflagration. So this exploit inflated singularly
the pride of these men whose imagination had already been
exalted by the doctrine of Orpheus. They were seen pushing
their military enterprises to possess in a few centuries all
the islands of the archipelago, 1 and covering with their
colonies nearly the entire shore of Asia Minor.
It was at this epoch that Rhodes became celebrated for
its maritime commerce, and that Homer appeared. 2
This word is remarkable; it is an abridgment of the Greek 'ApX&fTINI:yot
which signifies exactly that which rules over the Black Sea. This corroborates
what I have said before that all the Mediterranean Sea bore fonnerly the name
Pelasgus or Black Sea on account of the Pelasgians or Black People who
possessed it.
Certain rather injudicious writers sometimes represent this epoch as the
dawn of civilization, whereas it was, on the contrary, the decline. They do not
observe that the Greek tongue had already reached its highest point of per-
fection; that, first, the Lydians and, afterwards, the Rhodians had acquired
by commerce, immense wealth; that the arts had made such progress that one
had been able to model,cast,and set up the colossus of Rhodes,-that enonnous
statue of bronze representing Apollo placed at the entrance of the port in such a
way that each of his feet rested on one of the extended moles and a sailing
vessel full-rigged could pass between his legs,-which announced in the exact
physical and mechanical sciences means that we have not yet renewed. It is

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202 Hermeneutic Interpretation
At that time, a general disturbance took place in all
Europe. The Will of Man, raising itself above Providence
and Destiny, pretended to dominate and was dominated by
the multitude. All lines of demarcation disappeared. One
distinguished among the peoples only free men and slaves,
according as they were victors or vanquished. One would
have said that the human race, carried along by a retrograde
movement, was returning to the childhood of society and
was recognizing no authority other than force.
In Athens, an oracle, dictated by this dominant Will,
forces Codrus, its last king, to give himself up to death. In
Lacedremon, Lycurgus, likewise influenced by democratic
opinion, abdicates royalty and forms the bold project of
regulating this anarchistic movement by making Sparta a
monastery of soldiers. Corinth drives out her kings. On
every side royal power is overthrown. The kings who
resist the torrent, or those who, after being overthrown,
succeed in seizing again the authority, being obliged to
employ an extraordinary force in order to preserve it, are
called tyrants, and are compared with the despotic viceroys
whom, during the power of the Phrenicians, Tyre sent afar
to govern its colonies. Entire Greece is bristling with re-
publics. This form of government passes from the islands
of the archipelago into a part of Asia possessed by the Greeks
and there is propagated. The Phrenicians themselves,
profiting by the weakness of the Assyrians and the Egyp-
tians who have held them enslaved, throw off the yoke and
form many independent states whose influence is felt by
Arabia. Two powerful tribes, those of the Hemyarites
and those of the Koreishites, are divided in opinion. The
first, which wished to preserve the monarchical forms, is
attacked by the other which yields to the popular movement.
Violent combats ensue in which the two tribes suffer equally.
generally believed that Homer has painted the customs of his century, but this
is a mistake. This poet has retraced the imaginary customs of ancient times
such as his genius represented them to him.

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 Bibliothecas Burned 203

The tribe of the Hemyarites having triumphed momentarily,

one of their kings believed himself strong enough to make
an incursion into Persia and there founded the city of Samar-
kand, on the ruins of that of Soghd, capital of ancient
Soghdiana.
In the midst of these troubles, the Greeks, having become
more and more numerous and formidable, were sending
colonies everywhere. Miletus in Asia Minor; Mytilene,
on the island of Lesbos; Samos on the island of this name;
Cumre, in Italy, spring up under their dominion. Carthage,
on the shores of Mrica, receives a new lustre by the atten-
tions of the Tyrians. The city of Syracuse is founded in
Sicily, and, a short time after, Rome begins to appear upon
the scene of the world.
In the meantime, the Empire of the Assyrians becomes
dismembered. A prefect of Media, named Arbaces, seconded
by a Babylonian priest, named Belesis, revolts against
Sardanapalus, last King of Assyria, and compels him to set
fire to his palace in Nineveh and to burn himself together
with his wives and his treasures. Shortly after a king of
Babylon, named Nabon-Assar, full of fanatical pride, irri-
tated by the praises he had heard given to his predecessors,
contrives to make all these annoying examples disappear
in order to fill the universe with his name. He orders, in
consequence, that all inscriptions be effaced, all tablets of
bronze broken, and the bibliothecas burned. He wishes
that all memories shall date from his accession to the throne. 1
1 This era of destruction dates from the year 747 B.c. It is stated that a
similar idea came to the Romans after the establishment of the Republic, and
that the consuls caused the Books of Numa to be secretly destroyed, and every-
thing which could recall the ancient dominion of the Etruscans over them. It
appears equally certain that the monuments of the Thracians and Basques
met the same fate as those of the Chaldeans and Etruscans. The memory of a
like event is perpetuated in India. It is quite well known what took place in
China, and that the Emperor Tsin-che-hoang went further than Nabon-Assar,
in forbidding, under pain of death, the keeping of any literary monument prior
to his reign. At an epoch much nearer to us, Omar, the most passionate and
most ignorant of the disciples of Mohammed had the famous library of Alex-

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204 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Thus, since there was no longer Unity in things, that is
to say, since the Will of Man, either weakened or abandoned
to an inordinate effervescence, no longer bound Providence
to Destiny, things such as they were, good or bad, had only
a precarious existence and appeared in continual flux. If,
in the midst of the ever-growing darkness, some brilliant
lights showed themselves at intervals, like meteors, they
disappeared with the same rapidity. The general tendency,
although stamped by two opposite causes-the despotism
of an individual, or that of a multitude-was towards the
extinction of knowledge. Everything inclined towards its
decadence. Empires and republics carried equally in their
midst the germs of destruction, which were not long becom-
ing developed. Knowledge, insensibly enfeebled, became
extinct; memories were effaced; allegorical history misun-
derstood, and mythology disfigured, had materialized, so
to speak, in passing from moral to physical. Veils, precur-
sors of an obscurity more and more profound, had covered
the intellectual world. Corruption made frightful progress
in all classes of society. From the height of the thrones of
Asia, where it first took possession, it stole into the sanctu-
aries, and if European republics, at their beginning, were
able to escape from it, it was only by a violent effort, which,
soon becoming fatigued, let them fall into a dissolution
even more profound.
Providence, however, although not able to suspend
entirely the disorganizing movement, checked at least its
course and prepared a means of salvation for the future. In
the space of a few centuries, it raised up a number of extra-
ordinary men, who, inspired by it and endowed with different
andria burned. Before him several Christian popes, not less intolerant, had
caused a great many antique monuments to be destroyed. The archives of
Mexico and those of Peru have disappeared to satisfy the fanatical zeal of a
Spanish bishop. Thus, from one end of the earth to the other, pride and ignor-
ance were linked to stifle the voice of antiquity and to deprive men of their
own history. One might have been able to evade these disastrous events by
anticipating them.

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 Pythagoras
talents, erected barriers against this excess of vice and error
and introduced asylums for Truth and Virtue. Then ap-
peared, within a short time of each other, the last of the
Buddhas in India, Sin-Mou in Japan, Lao-tzee and Kong-tz6e
in China, the last of the Zoroasters in Persia, Esdras among
the Jews, Lycurgus in Sparta, N uma in Italy, and Pythagoras
for all Greece. All tending to the same end although by
contrary roads.
At the time when Pythagoras appeared, rich in all the
learning of Mrica and Asia, about the ninth century after
Orpheus, he found the memory of this theosophist almost
effaced from the minds of men and his most beautiful institu-
tions either unrecognized or attributed to most fantastic
origins. The m serable pride in being considered autoch-
thonous, in raising themselves above other nations, and in
disowning their benefits received from them, caused the
Greeks to be charged with great extravagances of which
those I have already related are only the least part. Profit-
ing by a certain analogy which was found between the name
of their cities and those of the cities of Phrenicia or Egypt,
an analogy which proved their origin, they claimed Breotian
Thebes as the birthplace of Hercules, the Universal Sover-
eign, without concerning themselves that numberless other
places had claimed this signal honour. For them Menou
of the Indians became Minos of the island of Crete and
Scander of the two horns, the son of Semele. They affirmed
that Perseus, son of Danae, had been the legislator of the
Persians. They attributed the discovery of iron to Dactyl,
the invention of the plough to Ceres, that of the chariot to
Erechtheus, and forged an infinity of fables of this sort each
one more absurd than the other. The people having become
I have at hand a volume which treats of the Scietu:e of History, where
chronology, founded upon that of Usserius is presented in a series of numerous
pictures. One sees there among other things that Prometheus taught men the
use of fire in 1687 B.c.; that Cadmus showed the art of writing to the Greeks in
1493 B.c.; that a fortunate hazard procured for Dactyl the discovery of iron in
1406 B.C.; that Ceres taught the use of the plough in 1385 B.c.; and all this

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206 Hermeneutic Interpretation
sovereign believed it, and arrogantly commanded the most
obstinate to believe it also. The mysteries established to
make Truth understood, being opened to too many initiates,
lost their influence. The hierophants, intimidated or cor-
rupt, either said nothing or sanctioned the deceit. Truth
must necessarily be lost or another way of preserving it
must be found. Pythagoras was the man to whom this
way was revealed. He did for science what Lycurgus had
done for liberty. Unable to arrest the torrent, he yielded
to it, in order to take possession of and master it.
Lycurgus, as legislator, had instituted a sort of warlike
fraternity, a curious mixture of despotism and democracy,
in appearance consecrated to liberty, but secretly destined
to restrain excesses of all descriptions. This formidable
institution, against which Persian despotism came to break,
overthrew the anarchistic haughtiness of the Athenians,
and prepared the triumphs of Alexander. Pythagoras, as
philosopher, instituted a sort of sacred congregation, a
secret assembly of the wise and religious men, which, spread-
ing itself in Europe, Asia, and even in Mrica, struggled there
against the ignorance and the impiety which were tending
to become universal. The service which he rendered to
humanity was very great. The sect which he created, and
which today is not entirely extinct, 1 traversing like a streak
of light the darkness gathered about us by the irruption of
the barbarians, the downfall of the Roman Empire, and the
many centuries after the foundation of the kingdoms of Sicyon and Argos,
while Phoronus had already given a code of laws to the Argives; Sparta had
been built; gold coin had been struck in Athens; and Semiramis had astonished
the world by the magnificent gardens that she had had constructed in Babylon.
Indeed how wonderful, kingdoms without ploughs, codes of law without
letters, gold money without fire, and cities built without iron!
1 There still exist some forms and some precepts among the Freemasons

who have inherited them from the Templars. These last received them in Asia,
at the time of the first Crusades, from a remnant of Maniclueans whom they
found there. The Manichleans received them from the Gnostics and these
imbibed them from the School of Alexandria where the Pythagoreans, the
Essenes. and the Mithraicists were blended together.

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 Secret Assemblies Instituted 207

necessary erection of a severe and lugubrious cult, has

brought about the revival of learning a thousand times more
easily than could have been done without it, and has spared
us many centuries of labour. It has pushed ahead all
sciences of natural philosophy, has reanimated chemistry,
disencumbered astronomy of the ridiculous prejudices which
have arrested its progress, preserved the principles of music,
taught the importance of numbers, geometry, and mathe-
matics, and has given points of support to natural history.
It has equally influenced the development of the moral
sciences, but with less success, on account of the obstacles
which it has encountered in the metaphysics of the schools.
I have spoken enough of this wonderful man in various other
works of mine , so that I need not here dwell at length upon
his noble deeds.
Particularly in my 8=flte1UStlrles Versdoru.

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 CHAPTER XII

RECAPITULATION

I HAVE shown in this book, Human Intelligence attained

to its highest development, vested with all the splendour
which genius gives, like the orb of day arrived at the summer
solstice, remaining as in suspense at the summit of its career,
and reluctantly leaving that sublime station to descend
slowly toward the inferior point whence it had risen.
I have told what the last Universal Empire had been,
and I think I have made it understood that a similar empire
could be only theocratic. There can be nothing universal,
nothing durable, nothing veritably great, where Divine
Force is not, that is to say, where Providence is not
recognized.
But as all that has begun must end, I have endeavoured
to explain in accordance with what Eternal laws this Univer-
sal Empire, after having blazed with a long splendour, had
to tend towards its decline and lose by degrees its constitu-
tive unity. The cause of its first division has been seen,
and I believe I have said on this subject things but little
known today. If the reader has observed the origin that I
give to many things, I hope that he will experience some
satisfaction in seeing with what fertility the simple principles
laid down in the first book are developed. If, from the
beginning of this work, he has considered merely as hypo-
theses the events that I have related, he must at least agree
:zo8

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 Decline of Universal Empire 209

that it was difficult to find any more analogous to those

which were to follow. At the point which we have reached,
positive history has begun long ago, and I hardly know
what hand would be bold enough to dare to place the line
of demarcation. In a chain where all the links are joined,
which shall it be necessary to regard as the first one? If
half of this chain has been hidden for a long time in obscurity,
is that any reason to deny its existence? If, when I show it
by throwing light upon it, one says that I create it, let some-
one take another torch and make me see, by throwing upon
it a greater brilliancy, either that it does not exist or that
it exists otherwise.
14

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 Part Second

FOURTH BOOK

The third book has explained the causes which brought

about the decline of the last Universal Empire. I have
shown how this decline, at first imperceptible, became ac-
celerated little by little and had finished in a downfall more
and more rapid. I shall relate in this book the result of the
last struggles between Europe and Asia and I shall show
that it was upon the debris of the Roman Empire that the
Universal Empire of Rarna expired.
As the sun, having reached the winter solstice leaves the
Boreal pole plunged in darkness for some time, so moral
obscurity rolling on with waves of barbarians, which inun-
dated Europe at this epoch, took possession of the human
mind for several centuries, and put back civilization. But,
at last, the ascending movement recommenced, and know-
ledge, lost to view or enfeebled, showed itself anew and
acquired an ever increasing brilliancy.

211

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 CHAPTER I

ELEVENTH REVOLUTION IN THE SOCIAL STATE-THE CULTS

DEGENERATE--INTELLECTUAL IDEAS MATERIALIZE-AD-
MISSION OF TWO DOCTRINES: ONE SECRET THE OTHER
PUBLIC

THEdegree
situation of the world was remarkable to the highest
at the time when the great men, of whom I
have spoken at the close of the last book, appeared. The
fatality of Destiny, dominating Asia and creating there the
despotism of kings, was face to face with the Will of Man
which sanctioned the sovereignty of the peoples in Europe.
Providence, unrecognized, although invoked by both parties,
was in neither, except in form. The diverse cults degenerated
everywhere into frivolous ceremonies or into superstitions,
lugubrious when they were not ridiculous. With the excep-
tion of a few secret sanctuaries where Truth, having taken
refuge, found shelter only beneath the thickest of veils;
even Egypt offered in her sacred mythology only an inex-
tricable chaos where bewildered reason was lost. The
dragon of the Atlanteans, confused with the crocodile,
received the adorations of an imbecile people. The ram of
Rama usurped the altars of the sun, and the bull of the
Celts was adored in place of the moon. As each star of the
heavens was designated by an animal, a multitude of deified
animals usurped the temples. This fatal epidemic, passing
from Egypt into Arabia, carried its venom as far as India
213

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214 Hermeneutic Interpretation
and even Persia. But as the moon, instead of being con-
sidered here as possessing the male faculty, was regarded,
on the contrary, as representing the female faculty of the
Universe, it was no longer a bull which served them as sym-
bol but a cow and the cow became for the degenerate Hindus
the object of a stupid veneration. The dog, attributed to
Mercury, surnamed the Prophet or divine Minister, recalled
the idea of all the providential emissaries, and, according to
the country, received the name of Boudh, Nabu, Job, Anu-
bis, etc. So that the people, becoming accustomed to see
their prophet represented by the figure of a dog, or only
with the head of this animal, gave to the dog the respect
which they felt for the prophet. It was the same with the
white or red dove which signified Venus; with the tortoise,
which belonged to the earth; and the wolf, the bear,
the wild boar, which was the symbol of Mars; with the
crane, the hawk, the eagle which characterized Jupiter,
etc.
At first Egypt, and then all the earth, was covered with
religious practices as fantastic as puerile. The symbolic
animals, deified by superstition, were passed on to the plants,
and, as Juvenal amusingly says, household gods of some
nations were seen growing among the vegetables in their
gardens. Then was verified that prediction of an ancient
Egyptian priest, who, seeing this deviation from the cult
had said to his native country, that posterity in considering
its idolatry would place in the category of lies and fables
all that could be said of its ancient wisdom, of its knowledge,
and of its virtues.
My intention is not to dwell here upon details which are
found everywhere. It was only necessary, concerning the
subject of which I am treating, to show that this condition
of the earth, such as existed about six centuries before our
era, was not at all habitual, as some writers have wished to
point out, but that it was the almost inevitable result of
the divisions which had taken place in the Universal Empire,

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 Secret Societies Formed 215

and of the degeneration which had followed them in all

moral and political institutions.
The great men who appeared then, although assisted
by Providence, and although possessors of most powerful
geniuses, could not change the state of things, because this
condition had its principle in the Will itself of Man, which,
as I have often said, is irrefutable. All that they could do
was to preserve, in the midst of the disorganizing torrent,
immobile centres where Truth might be maintained. One
should observe, if one has not already done so, that after
Orpheus, Moses, and Fo-Hi, no new religion was established
upon earth. The last Buddhas, Sin-Mou, Lao-tzee and
Kong-tzee, the last Zoroaster, Esdras, Lycurgus, Numa, and
Pythagoras, all gave way to the established cult, conformed
even to their exterior rites, and contented themselves with
founding theosophical or philosophical sects more or less
extensive. It was then that by their care were established
almost everywhere two doctrines perfectly distinct, one
common, conforming with the ideas of the multitude, the
other secret, destined to give to a small number only the
knowledge of the Truth and explanation of the thoughts
of sages. Many new initiations were opened; the ancient
ones took on a new character. With the cosmogonical
traditions of the ancient mysteries were blended positive
knowledge of the principle of things, of sciences, of arts, of
morals, and even of politics. For the first time, there were
secret societies whose members, united by the same prin-
ciples, were sworn to an inviolable fidelity and recognized
each other even among other initiates by certain signs.
The Pythagorean Society was the most extensive and pro-
ductive of great men. One recognized also, the Orphic,
the Mithridatic, the Essenian, the Nazarene, the Isiac, the
Shamanistic, the Taoistic, and innumerable other societies
which it is unnecessary to name. The aim of all these soci-
eties was to arrest corruption wherever it was found, to
offer refuge or help to virtue, and to place as much as

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216 Hermeneutic Interpretation
possible a restraint upon the errors of despotism, royal,
aristocratic, or popular.
It is very remarkable, also, that the societies multiplied
principally in Europe, or upon the shores of Asia and Mrica,
where the rule of the populace was most strongly manifested.
For, although it may be true that all despotism is pernicious
whatever its form-and I mean here by despotism all power
which is founded upon the arbitrary and unlimited will of
those who exercise it without the intervention of the Divinity
who regulates its use-it is, however, none the less true that
the violence or the danger of despotism increases in propor-
tion as it descends from the highest classes of society to the
lowest, and as it spreads among the greater number. In
short, it is always upon the armed multitude that despotism
is founded whether it be imperial or republican, whether
this multitude receives the law from one alone or from many
or whether it makes it for itself. At any rate, there revo1u-
tions are more rapid and less profound; here more tenacious
and more rancorous.
Moreover, at this epoch, while the evil had commenced
to be great, it had however not reached the extreme point
of breaking all forms and appearing openly in its hideous
nudity. The monarchs of Asia, although they had really
thrown off the theocratic authority of sovereign pontiffs,
preserved none the less an exterior respect for the Divinity.
They always maintained priests to perform the sacrifices
and the usual ceremonies, and thus kept the people in a sort
of religious stupor favourable to their plans; but this stupor,
lacking the principle of Truth, necessarily degenerated into
stupidity or foolish superstition. And it is very remarkable
that while Asiatic despotism preserved certain exterior
forms of theocracy which it had stifled, European anarchy
believed itself obliged to preserve certain forms of royalty
which it had abolished. There was in Athens, as in Rome,
and in all the other republican states, a king of sacrifices,
so the people might legitimately communicate with the

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 Sacerdotal Ceremonies Degenerate 217

sacerdotal phantom which still existed. It seemed that,

on the one side, Destiny fearing the force of the Will, tried
to pacify it, and that, on the other hand, this force openly
displayed, dreading the absolute abandonment of Providence,
tried to deceive it.

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 CHAPTER II

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN EUROPE AND ASIA-TAKING OF

TROY BY THE GREEKs-DECLINE OF THE ASSYRIAN EM-
PIRE-ELEVATION OF PERSIA UNDER CYRUS-EXPEDI-
TION OF XERXEs-TRIUMPH OF GREECE-cONQUEST OF
ALEXANDER

ACCORDING to the situation of things which I have

just described, one can judge of the action of the three
great powers of the universe. Destiny dominated in Asia,
the Will of Man in Europe, and Providence, repulsed on
both sides, was obliged to conceal its course, in order not to
infringe upon those laws of Necessity and Liberty which it
had imposed upon itself.
But since there existed only two active and opposed
powers, it was evident that they had to fight. Necessity
and Liberty cannot remain indifferent face to face with
one another. As soon as the sole power which can maintain
harmony between them is ignored, discord must necessarily
arise. So Asia and Europe had to fight to determine to
which of the two should remain the Empire. Destiny on
the one side, and the Will of Man on the other, displayed
their most redoubtable forces.
Already Europe had invited the struggle by irruptions
more or less considerable; the taking of Troy, almost within
sight of the Assyrian monarch, who dared not oppose it
had been a great event. The establishment of several
218

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 Kingdom of Macedonia Founded 219

Greek colonies upon the Asiatic littoral had been the result;
Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia had been overcome and peopled
with free colonies. The Cimmerians descending from sep-
tentrional heights had many times invaded Asia Minor
and had established themselves there; they had made felt
there the force of their cavalry, swifter and better trained
for war than that of the Assyrians. The Greeks had imitated
their example and, for the first time, chariot-racing was
introduced at the Olympian Games. All urged Asia to
think of her defence; but neither the kings of Babylon, nor
even those of Ecbatana, were in condition to resist Greece,
if Greece united in a single people should attack them. This
union, although still far distant, was preparing itself silently.
The kingdom of Macedonia had just been founded.
The King of Media, Cyaxares, 2 however, after having
driven the Celts from Upper Asia, which they had invaded,
and after becoming master of all Assyria, of Palestine, and
a part of Arabia, left a flourishing realm which fell, a short
time after, into the hands of Cyrus. Thanks to this young
hero, Persia, subject to the Babylonians for more than
fifteen centuries, placed itself in the first rank of Asiatic
powers and aspired to the Universal Empire. The conquest
of Lydia opened to Cyrus immense treasures; he entered
Babylon in triumph; he penetrated India. At his death,
his son Cambyses pursued the course of his victories and
conquered Egypt. The Jews, after having obtained from
Cyrus permission to return to Jerusalem and there to rebuild
their temple, made themselves tributaries of the Persian
1 The Olympian Games established by Iphitus in honour of Olympian Zeus

about the year 884 B.c. had as aim the maintenance of a religious unity in
Greece which politics tended to destroy. These games were not used as a
chronological epoch until towards the year 776 B.C. The era of the Olympiads
dates from the victory of Corcebus which was the first inscribed on the public
registers. The introduction of chariot-racing was in the year 645 B.C.
This name which should be written Kai-assar signifies the supreme
monarch. It was a title at that time, which the Median king took as King of
Kings. The name Cyrus, Kai-Kosrou has about the same meaning.

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220 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Empire; thus all Asia and the greater part of Africa seemed
to be united.
Europe began the hostilities. The Athenians passed into
Asia, besieged the city of Sardis and burned it. The P~
sians, led into Europe almost within sight of Athens, were
there defeated by Miltiades. Egypt profited by this event
to throw off the yoke; but Xerxes,' after having brought
again this kingdom under his rule, commenced his memor-
able expedition against Greece. His success is well known.
The Will of Man triumphed over all that Destiny hurled
against it, even the most formidable. More than a million
soldiers, at first checked at Thermopylre by three hundred
Spartans, determined to conquer or die, were annihilated
upon the fields of Platrea and Mycale, and the largest
tleet which had ever tloated upon the Mediterranean
covered with its debris the shores of Salamis. Asia was
vanquished.
If Greece had known how to profit by her advantages,
she would then have carried away the sceptre of the world
from Persia and have founded in Europe the Universal
Empire. She needed only to listen to the voice of the
Amphictyons and to believe in Providence, which by means
of the Pythoness of Delphi designated Socrates as wisest
of mortals. By becoming a united nation, by stiffing all
hatreds, all rivalries which separated the diverse members
of the Amphictyonic confederation, by receiving from the
mouth of Socrates the instructions which the genius of that
divine man would have given her, Greece would have raised
herself to destinies, the splendour and duration of which it
would be impossible to determine. But no, this haughty
Will, made proud by its victory, knew only how to obtain a
passing and frivolous benefit; it sacrificed for a few moments
of ostentatious enjoyment thousands of years of glory and
of happiness; for I ought to say one thing here which has
not been perceived, viz., that Greece died young and, so to
SW..SW. the Valiant King or Lion-King.

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 Pythoness of Delphi 221

speak, became extinguished in the flower of her youth.

Vanity ruined her. Enamoured of a foolish liberty, she
yielded to the storm of passions and did not bear the fruits
which Orpheus and Pythagoras had brought to light and
which Socrates and Plato were destined to mature.
Instead of strengthening herself by concentrating, she
became divided, and, turning against herself her blind pas-
sions, broke with her own hands the wonderful instrument
which Providence had given her for her preservation. The
Athenians and the Spartans, scarcely having acquired the
position of conquerors, quarrelled, and with their blood
drenched the plains of Peloponnesus. 1 In a few years,
Aristides, the most just of the Greeks, Themistocles and
Cimon, the saviours of their native land, were banished.
The city of Platrea was burned, and all its inhabitants were
reduced to slavery. Athens, taken by the Spartans, was
given over to the condemnation of the thirty tyrants; and,
finally, Socrates, at first abandoned to the bitter sarcasms
of Aristophanes, to the impious calumnies of Anytus, con-
demned by an insensate tribunal, drank the hemlock and
expiated the crime of having been the greatest of the
Athenians and the most virtuous of men.
From this moment, there was no more hope for Greece;
her movements were only convulsions, sometimes caused by a
mad joy, sometimes by a puerile fear. The Spartans, after
having triumphed over the Athenians, were humiliated by
the Persians, with whom Antalcidas concluded a shameful
Notice that the name Pelops, from which this name is derived, signifies
Black Land. It was the name of Greece while occupied by the Pelasges or Black
People. The Heraclides who vanquished the Pelopida:l designate the Boreans
called Heruli. All the different names which the Greeks have borne in different
times explain the sects to which they belonged. By the name of Hellenes one
should understand the Lunars, opposed to Helices or Iliones the Solars; by
that of ArgifleS, the Whites, opposed to the Phrenicians, the Reds; by those of
the Dorians of A cluMns, the Males or the Strong Ones, opposed to the Ionians,
etc. As to the name of Greeks, which they gave themselves with difficulty, it
came from the Celtic Graia, a crane, and proved that they were a part of the
faction of the Salians against the Ripuarians.

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. 222 Hermeneutic Interpretation
peace. Defeated by the Thebans at Leuctra and at Man-
tinea they never recovered from this catastrophe. The
women of Sparta then saw the smoke of the enemy's camp,
and lost even the memory of their savage virtues. The
Thebans, reputed the hardiest of the Greeks, seized the
dominion in order to put it within reach of the King of Mace-
donia, and to let him take it most easily. Greece had still
great men, but she was no longer a great nation, and could
not pretend to be. She had great men only to ignore them,
to persecute them, to sell them as vile anjmals in the market-
place, to give them up to death.
At this epoch, the Council of the Amphictyons had lost
all of its authority, and the sanctuary of Delphi all its in-
fluence. This sacred place, pillaged by the Phocians and
profaned by the Crisseans, gave pretext for a war in which
Philip of Macedon found means of entering in his capacity
as member of the Amphictyonic Council. It was in vain
that Greece, frightened to behold so dangerous a confederate
arriving in her midst, tried to put him out of the way. The
philippics, with which Demosthenes made the tribune re-
sound, excited only useless effervescence. In Athens there
was agitation, in Sparta an insolent laconism was affected;
Thebes was given over to secret intrigues; but nowhere did
real strength exist. Philip pursued his plans; he triumphed
over Olynthus, subjugated the Phocians, terminated the
sacred war, paid honour to the Temple of Delphi, and, taking
possession of the Council of the Amphictyons which these
confederate imbeciles had always neglected, had himself
named commander-in-chief of all the troops of Greece. The
restrained Will uttered a cry of despair; abandoned by
Providence, about to be crushed by Destiny, it sought means
of saving itself, and, finding only crime, embraced it; Philip
was assassinated; but this cowardly outrage, far from turning
aside the peril which menaced it, on the contrary precipitated
it. Such is the Eternal law that all crime draws with it its
own chastisement.

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 Alexander, Surnamed The Great 223

Alexander, who succeeded his father, although still very

young, displayed even greater powers. At the age of twenty
he entered Greece, overthrew Thebes, subdued the Atheni-
ans, and, soon at the head of an army which his courage
alone rendered formidable, landed in Asia and began the
conquest of Persia.
It is quite useless, I think, that I should stop at the details
of the expedition of Alexander. All the world knows how
this young hero, vanquisher at the Granicus, fought Darius
at the battle of Issus; cut the Gordian knot in passing
through Gordium, so as to fulfil the oracle which promised
the Empire of Asia to the one who should untie it; took
possession of Tyre, after a siege of seven months; conquered
Egypt, where he founded Alexandria; took Gaza; subju-
gated all of Syria; and finally made his triumphant entrance
into Babylon, after having defeated entirely the army of
Darius at Arbela.
Mter this, Greece no longer existed, and the future of
Europe was once more compromised; for Alexander, yield-
ing to Destiny which had taken possession of him, consented
to establish his empire in Asia, and to adopt the habits and
customs of the peoples whom he had conquered. It is a pity
that this hero, susceptible of feeling all that which was
great, should not have seen that it was only in order to
effect a change of dynasty on the throne of Persia that he
had been called out of Macedonia. Why did he not re-
member that his father had owed the force which he had
bequeathed to him only to the course which he had taken
in the sacred war in rendering to the Temple of Delphi its
influence and to the assembly of the Amphictyons its dignity?
Why did he not dream of keeping up the priesthood on the
holy mountain? Why did he not see that he ought toes-
tablish the capital of his empire in Athens or at least in
Byzantium? Blind pride! It alone told him what he owed
to Providence and he believed that his star had led him to
the conquest of the world. Content to be called the son

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224 Hermeneutic Interpretation
of Jupiter, he did not concern himself about meriting this
signal honour, and he delivered himself to Destiny which
ruined him. His expedition into India was but a vain
demonstration, and his death, which occurred at the age
of thirty-two years, whether it was due to poison, or was
the consequence of an orgy, was none the less the result
of his mistakes.

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 CHAPTER III

GREECE LOSES HER POLITICAL EXISTENCE-REFLECTIONS ON

THE RELATIVE DURATION OF THE DIVERSE GOVERNMENTS

IT ander
is known that, after the division of the Empire of Alex-
among his generals, a certain Polysperchon pro-
claimed in the name of the new sovereigns the liberty of all
the cities of Greece; but it was a mockery. Greece no longer
had political existence, and all the liberty left to these cities
was confined to that of corrupting their great men, when
they had any, or of suppressing the philosophers, as Athens
tried to do with Phocion and Theophrastus. But Athens,
the most free, or rather the most turbulent of the Greek
cities, fell successively in a few years under the power of
Antipater, of Demetrius of Phaleron, of Demetrius Polior-
cetes, of Antigonus Gonatas, etc. Whereas Sparta, &fter
having massacred her Ephors, had tyrants whose very
names do not deserve to be mentioned.
Thus, in going back in the political existence of Greece
to the establishment of the tribunal of Amphictyons, about
1500 B.c. one can give to this existence a duration of only a
dozen centuries at the most, of which five or six centuries were
under the republican regime, and this is not comparable to
anything that we have seen either in theocracy or even in
royalty. This very agitated and very limited existence has,
however, been praised to excess, perhaps on account of its very
agitation and its brevity; for what men value above all in his-
225

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226 Hermeneutic Interpretation
tory is rapidity and movement. But does the happiness of the
peoples depend on that? I doubt it. When I see three or
four thousand years occupying hardly a few pages, have I
not the right to think that the most perfect calm has reigned
during this interval and that the rarity of events announces
the absence of wars and evils, crimes and other scourges?
There is nothing so soon depicted as felicity; it is the aspect
of a still lake which reflects a sky without clouds. But the
tempest which announces danger, the calamities which
rouse peoples, all this varies the scene in a thousand ways,
and furnishes material for an infinity of tableaux. Doubt-
less one loves to read those pompous descriptions, where
contrasts awaken attention, where oppositions of light and
darkness, of virtue and vice, stir the heart, where interest
is excited by the shock of passions; but is it only to amuse
posterity that peoples have a history? Who is the man who
would sacrifice the welfare of his whole life to the foolish
vanity of furnishing the material for a romance?
Nevertheless, this is an observation upon which I strongly
advise the reader to meditate. All ancient chronologies
which have come down to us from the Hindus, Egyptians,
Chinese, Iranians, or Chaldeans, and where the duration of
dynasties and of reigns are calculated equally, declare
generally the relative duration of the reigns from thirty to
forty years. It is not unusual to see monarchs remaining
on the throne for sixty, eighty, or a hundred years. Arrian
and Pliny agree in saying that from Rama, whom they call
Dionysus, to Alexander, I 53 reigns were completed in India, a
space of 64,02 years, and, on the other hand, Herodotus re-
lates that the Egyptian priests showed him in a great hall the
statues of 345 pontiffs, and this would raise the general
duration of the priesthoods to II,340 years. I myself have
observed, in glancing through the history of ancient
dynasties, that, during all the time that the theocracy of
Rama preserved its force, there had never been the slightest
revo~ution against the throne. Kings, succeeding each other,

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 Revolutions Commence 227

according to the law of nature, fulfilled their long career

and made the people happy, without having ever to fear
either the passions of the multitude or the ambitions of the
great. Protected by Providence, whose agent they re-
cognized, they maintained in a just equilibrium, the fatality
of Destiny and the free Will of Man. Neither daggers nor
poison could approach them. It was not until a long time
after the schism of the Phrenicians, the Parsees and the
Chinese, and when the extinction of the Solar and Lunar
Dynasties had taken place, that revolutions commenced.
The insensate monarchs who succeeded them, moved by a
calamitous pride, did not see that, by throwing off the au-
thority of the sovereign pontiffs, they thus turned aside the
hand of Providence which protected them, and opened to
their rivals and their subjects the way of crime and rebellion.
It was about twenty centuries before our era that this
fatal thought fell into the minds of kings. Belochus at
Babylon, Pradyota among the Hindus, commenced the
movement which was felt from the banks of the Hoang-ho
River to the Nile. The evil went so far in Egypt, Herodotus
assures us, that for more than a century, during the dis-
astrous reigns of Cheops and Chephron, the temples of the
gods were closed. On and after this epoch, royalty was
subjected to storms which, up to that time had been un-
known. The crown, ever stained with blood, passed to
guilty heads, and parricidal hands bore the sceptre. Then
the reigns were shortened more and more and kings multi-
plied in a frightful progression.
But to return to my first purpose, I said that the political
existence of the Greeks under the republican administra-
tion could be estimated at five or six centuries. Experience

If we consider, for example, the dynasty of Cyrus, we will see that in the
space of 228 years, that is to say, after the epoch when Cyrus took the crown
of Persia, 559 B.c. until the death of Darius, dethroned by Alexander in 331 B.c.,
fourteen kings succeeded to the throne, nearly all of whom were assassinated or
were assassins; this would give about sixteen years to each reign.

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shows that that is about the limit of duration of the strong-
est republics. That of Sparta, Carthage, and even Rome
have not lasted longer.
The downfall of Greece brought to Ionia, that is to say,
to all who shared in the Phamician schism, an almost mortal
blow. This schism had covered so many countries, there
remained only those over which Carthage and Rome ex-
tended their dominion; for already Tyre and Sidon no longer
existed. Some years after the conflagration of the Temple
of Ephesus, the inhabitants of Sidon, besieged by the Per-
sians, killed each other after having delivered their city to
flames and after Tyre had become the prey of the successors
of Alexander. It was then, in Carthage and in Rome that
the remnant of this ancient power was concentrated and
that the Will of Man exercised its force.

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 CHAPTER IV

COMMENCEMENT OF ROME-HER WARS-HER STRUGGLE WITH

CARTHAGE-HER TRIUMPHS

B EFORE the Romans had established a republic, they

were dependent upon the Etruscans, called Tusces,
Tosques, and Toscans, who governed them at first by means
of viceroys. These viceroys, called Tarquins, 1 ended by
making themselves almost independent of the Etruscan
Lars, when the people, tired of their pride and avarice,
threw off their authority and declared themselves free under
the leadership of Brutus and Valerius. A senate was estab-
lished, presided over by two consuls who were removable.
Etruria, which in earlier times did not differ from Thrace,
was, as I have said, only a Phrenician colony planted upon
that of the Hindus-a mixture of Atlanteans and of Celts.
Rome, destined to be so celebrated, was in the first place
only a sort of stronghold built upon the banks of the Tiber
1 The word Tarquin is composed of two Phcenician words, T8r-Ktn, the one

who regulates the possession or the conquest. As to the names that many of
these Tarquins appear to have had, they are rather epithets which designate
their works. Thus the name of Romulus indicates the founder of Rome, and
Quirinus the Genius of the city, Numa, the legislator, theocrat, etc. It is
certain that the latter was a powerful legislator among the Etruscans, whose
name was afterwards given as an honour to those who imitated him. We know
moreover that the first historian of Rome, Fabius Pictor, wrote only from the
time of the second Punic war about five hundred and forty years after the
epoch where the foundation of this city is placed, and that he was able to
consult only the most uncertain traditions.
229

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230 Hermeneutic Interpretation
to protect navigation. Its name, Etruscan or Phrenician,
which became afterwards its secret and sacred name, was
then Valentia, that is to say, the rendezvous of the force.
It was not until after it was delivered from the Tarquins
that it took the name of Rome, from an ancient Greek word
which signified set at liberty. 1 This city, which remained
a very long time in great obscurity, was not known to the
Greeks until the epoch when it was taken by the Gauls.
The historian Theopompus mentions this event, agreeing
with Pliny, but without attaching very great importance
to it. It appears, however, that about this time, the Romans
had already sent magistrates to Athens to learn the laws of
Solon.
Carthage was then well known by its military expedi-
tions. This commercial republic had many settlements in
Spain, on the occidental and meridional shores of Gaul,
and as far as Sicily, and had already made herself formid-
able. Rome, too savage at first to love the arts, a refuge
for a crowd of vagabonds without learning and without
desire to acquire it, had fallen into a state of ignorance;
whereas Greece possessed the Metonic Cycle and each year
placed a nail at the door of the temple of Jupiter to preserve
the chronology. The first sun-dial to be used in Rome
was placed more than two centuries after the establish-
ment of the consuls upon the temple of Romulus Quirinus.
The Romans were, in their origin, only a sort of filibusters
whom the lure of plunder united; courageous brigands,
whose single virtue, adorned by the pompous name of patri-
otism, consisted for several centuries only in bringing to
the common mass what they had pillaged from neighbouring
nations. When these warriors went. abroad, they bore as
ensign a handful of hay, called manipuli. The crane, which
Valentia is formed from the words Whal-a1llh8. As to the name of
Rome, it may come from Po114C. But I know that the Brahmans cite several
pages from the Pouranas which claim it is derived from Rama. They say
that Rome was one of his colonies.

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 Metonic Cycle-Ensigns Used 231

they received from the Salian priests and which they trans-
formed into an eagle, did not appear upon their flags until
much later. It is even possible that this emblem was taken
by them only during the first Punic war, and then in order
to compete with the Carthaginians, who carried the head of
a horse. As the head of a horse was consecrated to Moloch,
likewise to Saturn, so the Roman eagle was consecrated to
Jupiter. Be that as it may, it was within the walls of Rome
that the Will of Man, restrained in Greece and about to be
crushed by Destiny, took refuge. It was there that it con-
centrated all its strength. Carthage, which could not offer
it as sure a shelter, was sacrificed.
If one loves movement in history, if one is pleased with
tumultuous events, rapid and violent; if the savage virtues
of a certain kind, a heroism rough and without courtesy,
can interest in the midst of scenes of carnage and devasta-
tion, one ought to read with delight the annals of Rome.
Never did city, never did people furnish such examples.
In a few centuries, the universe saw this struggling Etrurian
village, still bruised by the chains which she had borne,
hardly free from the hands of Porsenna who had humiliated
her and from those of Brennus who was bought off and the
Capitol saved, try her strength, extend herself, raise herself,
and, from the depths of the dust, attain the height of gran-
deur. In the war with the Samnites, she came out from
her obscurity; she challenged Pyrrhus in the siege of Taren-
tum, and, at first, frightened by the sight of his elephants
fell back before him; but soon reassured, she attacked, beat,
and forced him to retire to Epirus. Obliged to dispute the
empire of the sea with the Carthaginians, she had need of a
marine force; she soon created one and her first sea-fight
was a triumph. In the interval between the first and second
Punic wars, she took possession of Sardinia and Corsica,
subjugated the pirates of Illyria, carried her arms even
beyond Italy, and passed the Po for the first time.
Nevertheless, sinister signs occurred to intimidate these

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232 Hermeneutic Interpretation
warriors, who, superstitious as well as ignorant, believed
that they could appease the gods by human sacrifice. Two
Greeks and two Gauls, man and woman, were seized by
order of the consuls and were buried alive in the market
place at Rome. This abominable sacrifice did not prevent
Hannibal, at the opening of the second Punic War, after
having destroyed Saguntum in Spain, from crossing the
Alps and from covering the fields of Trasimenus and Ca.nxue
with Roman corpses. Fear was upon Rome, and, notwith-
standing the vain boasting of several senators, it has always
appeared certain that if the Carthaginian general had be-
sieged her, he would have taken her. Why did he not profit
by his advantages? It was because the same Will which
had moved the two republics, being unable to preserve but
one, preserved that one in which it had the most influence,
the one which belonged to Europe, where the centre of its
activity was, and, as I have already said, sacrificed the other.
This is what appeared evident in this circumstance, where
not only the particular will of Hannibal bent without know-
ing why, but where the citizens of Carthage, being divided
among themselves upon the most frivolous pretexts, deliv-
ered their city to the destruction which awaited it. The
battle of Zama, won by Scipio, decided its fate. It was in
vain that Hannibal believed he could retard the march of
Rome by ~voking the power of Destiny against her. The
war which he kindled between Antiochus and the Romans
served but to augment their power, by enriching them with
the spoils of this monarch, by enabling them to conquer
Macedonia, and by rendering them arbitrators of Egypt.
Carthage, having been destroyed, nothing more could
resist this colossal republic, which, extending its enormous
arms, now in Asia, now in Africa, now in Europe, made its
laws recognized from the Tagus to the Tanais; and from the
Atlas to the Caucasus mountains.

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 CHAPTER V

REFLECTIONS ON THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE DOWNFALL

OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC-CONQUEST OF GAUL BY
<JESAR-CIVIL WARS- PROSCRIPTIONS-VICTORY OF
OCTAVIANUS

T HE Will of Man triumphed with the Roman power.

Destiny, forced to draw back on all sides, maintained
itself only in the south of Asia, where the blow already
threatened to strike it. It needed for this only the over-
throw of the Empire of the Parthians, which served as a
barrier. x This would undoubtedly have happened if this
victorious Will had not been divided; but that was impos-
sible unless Providence intervened; for as I have often re-
peated, and as it seems to me that the history which I have
unfolded to the eyes of the reader has sufficiently proved by
its principal events, nothing durable can exist unless Pro-
vidence consolidates it. Whether Destiny or the Will of
Man act in concert or alone, they will never produce but
transient things, forms, more or less brilliant, which will
crush one another and will vanish into space. Now Pro-
vidence was no more recognized in Rome than it had been
in Athens. The public cult deprived of essential principle,
This Empire had been founded by Arsaces about 250 B.C., upon the dis-
memberment of that of Seleucus. It included particularly ancient Persia.
The dynasty of this .Arsaces is known by the Persians under the name of
AshluJ11itle.
233

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234 Hermeneutic Interpretation
consisted only of vain ceremonies, of atrocious or ridiculous
superstitions, of allegorical formulas which were no longer
understood. The mass of the people, indeed, still believed
in a crude mixture of Phrenician, Etruscan, and Greek mytho-
logies, and gave themselves over to vague beliefs; but the
brains of the nation did not accept any of these ideas as
true, considering them only as useful and of service politi-
cally. The augurs and haruspices despised each other, and,
according to the remark of Cicero, could not look at each
other without laughing. As early as the first Punic War,
two hundred and fifty years before the beginning of our era,
Claudius Pulcher, all ready to engage with the Carthaginians
in a naval combat, seeing that the sacred chickens would
not eat, had them thrown into the sea, saying jestingly that
he would make them drink. The sovereign pontiff, main-
tained solely for form, as king of sacrifices, enjoyed but few
barren honours without real authority. This office was
canvassed for in Rome as that of redile; and no difference was
made in the choice between the moral instruction of the
man who directed the religious ceremonies and that of the
man who presided at the games of the amphitheatre. In
general, as much in Europe as in Asia, under the dominion
of Destiny as under that of the Will, religion was regarded
only as a political institution, a sort of curb or bridle wisely
conceived to check the multitude when it was aroused and
to direct it at the pleasure of the government.
The conquest of Africa and Asia had introduced into
Rome luxury and the love of wealth which is the consequence.
That of Greece had brought the taste for arts and letters and
that instinct for subtle philosophy natural to the Greeks.
A mass of systems which were raised from the debris of one
another invaded the schools. Nearly all opposed the domi-
nating polytheism, but, without positively putting anything
in place of it, lost themselves in equivocal reasoning which,
sometimes supporting the pro and con of all things, led to
scepticism. Many of these systems even, corrupted by

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 Systems of Epicurus and Zeno 235

ignorant sophistry, flattered the tastes of the voluptuous

and perverted, in setting them free from any remorse for
weakness or for crime, and in representing the gods as occu-
pying themselves not in the least with what might be pass-
ing on earth. The system of Epicurus, thus disfigured,
was opposed to that of Zeno the Stoic, establishing upon the
order of the Universe the necessity of an intelligent primal
Cause and founding the welfare of man upon the accomplish-
ment of his duties; but this system, carried too far, as that
of Epicurus, had lost its vigour through excessive praise,
in the same manner as the other had become corrupt through
transgressing its limits. So that Roman society was com-
posed, either of men who too easily followed all impulses,
or of men too inflexible to yield to any. This division of
which I have shown the principle caused the ruin of the repub-
lic and prevented the consolidation of the Empire which
followed it, even when force of things was not absolutely
opposed to it,-for on the one side, too much indolence lent
itself to too many forms, and, on the other, too much rigi-
dity broke them all. There was in all this neither life nor
truth.
Julius Cresar conquered Gaul; although he experienced
many great difficulties in this expedition, they were slight
in comparison with those which he would have encountered
had Gaul been formed of one single nation. But it was
divided into numberless peoples, often jealous of one another,
and a common bond no longer united them. It had been
a long time since any Celts, properly speaking, had existed;
the ancient name had been preserved but the nation had
disappeared. Neither the Gauls, nor the Teutons, nor the
Polabians existed any more; these names remained only as
historic monuments. One would have searched in vain
the nations which they had originally designated. One
found in Gaul the Rhcetians, the Bibracte, the Ruteni, the
Senones, the Allobroges, the Alvernes, the Carnutes, the
Bituriges, the Hennetes and a host of other unimportant

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236 Hermeneutic Interpretation
peoples which would be wearisome as well as useless to
name. Germany which had taken the place of Teutoland,
and Russia and Poland that of Sarmatia, were similarly
divided among numberless like tribes. The irruptions which
had succeeded each other a hundred times from the North
to the South, and from theWest to the East; the Mrican and
Asiatic colonies, which supplanted each other turn by turn
during so long a space of time, had changed in a thousand
ways the physiognomy of Europe. The variations which
had taken place in the peoples had also taken place in the
dialects, in the customs, in the laws, and in the cults; so
that the confusion had become such that it was impossible
to go back even in thought to any sort of unity. One would
have believed, in comparing a Greek with a Breton and a
Roman with a Sarmatian, that it was impossible that such
men should have sprung from the same origin.
The Gauls then, whom Cresar vanquished, were not
precisely Gauls and still less Celts; they were a mixture of a
hundred little peoples who often did not understand each
other. They defended themselves with an obstinate valour,
and yielded only to the superiority which the discipline,
authority, and talents of their general gave to the Romans.
During these long and bloody contests, a large part of the
inhabitants of Gaul perished on the battlefields, and even
greater numbers submitted to slavery, the rest, incapable
of making a longer resistance, gave way to the victors.
Before this event, however, symptoms of dissolution
manifested themselves at Rome. The republic, so extolled
by men more passionate than wise, scarcely four centuries
old, inclined towards its downfall and having no more
people whose blood they might spill, prepared to drown
themselves in torrents of their own.
Already Marius and Sulla, as divided in character as in
ambition, had kindled a civil war whose bitter fruits had
been the proscription of a great number of citizens. Catiline,
ambitious, more obscure, trying to attain by conspiracy to

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 Ccesar Crosses the Rubicon 237

the authority which could be obtained at that time only by

military successes, had been easily overthrown by Cicero,
who had not the same good fortune as had Cresar and whom
Antony had the cowardice to banish, as Antipater three
centuries before had banished Demosthenes; when Pompey,
whose glory had preceded that of Cresar, unable to endure a
rival who effaced him, whether he still believed in the possi-
bility of a republic, or pretended to believe in it, drew to his
party the majority of the senate and all those whom Rome
still counted citizens, rigid observers of the ancient laws.
Cato, Brutus, and Cassius declared themselves for him.
But Cresar, quicker to understand the mind of the Romans,
and more prompt to profit by circumstances, concentrated
his army when the senate ordered him on his return from
Gaul to disband it, and with it, crossing the Rubicon, the
limit of his government, entered Italy. A new civil war was
declared, whose events by their rapidity were astonishing.
At the first conflict, Pompey, besieged in Brundisium,
escaped without daring to sustain the siege. Cresar wishing
to prevent the reunion of his force hastened to Spain, and
put to rout his lieutenants. Retracing his steps, he besieged
and took Marseilles, and, from there, passing rapidly into
Macedonia, gave battle to Pompey in the plains of Pharsalus
and defeated him utterly. Pompey made his escape to
Egypt, where he was assassinated by the order of Ptolemy.
Cresar who was upon his tracks, entered Egypt, made him-
self master of Alexandria, and, carrying the war into Africa,
won the battle of Thapsus. Cato killed himself, and with
him expired what the Will of Man regarded as the noblest
and grandest. Brutus and all those of his party, irritated
and exasperated by the event, plotted crime in order to
escape from the evil.
Cresar could have escaped the blow which awaited him;
he had only to listen to the voice of Providence which warned
him in all ways, to give to it the credit of his good fortune;
but, having reached almost the same point as Alexander, he

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238 Hermeneutic Interpretation
committed the same mistake as this conqueror; he attri-
buted whatever great deed he had accomplished to his star;
and, even more audacious, stretched out his hand to the
tiara and declared himself sovereign pontiff. He was
assassinated.
Before the outbreak of the civil war, a sort of pact was
concluded among Pompey, Cresar, and Crassus, and this
unusual pact, which bore the name of Triumvirate, had had
a most calamitous end. After the death of Cresar, a new
triumvirate, no less heterogeneous than the first, was formed
among Octavianus, adopted son of Cresar, Antony his
lieutenant, and Lepidus an insignificant personage. The
proscriptions recommenced; Rome was again inundated
with blood and Brutus and Cassius, beaten by Antony,
killed themselves. Pompey's son was slaughtered. Nearly
all the assassins of Cresar perished by the sword. At last,
Octavianus and Antony having fallen out, their quarrel
was decided by the naval battle of Actium, which gave the
Roman Republic unconditionally to the victor; this victor,
as astonished by his victory as overwhelmed by the crown
which descended upon his head, dared neither refuse the
Empire nor seize it with a hand honest and resolute. The
bloody image of Cresar, falling pierced with stabs in the senate,
was constantly before his eyes. Octavianus was born with-
out political courage; he had valour only on the day of
battle; the title of Augustus, which was given him did not
change his character ; he believed himself fortunate without
believing himself worthy, and, although he was vested with
the dignity of sovereign pontiff and that of Emperor, he
had never either the providential influence of the one, nor
the legitimate authority of the other; he was obeyed be-
cause he had the power that gave force, but not because he
had the power which gave ascendancy, hence his conduct
The Latin word Augustus comes from the word Augur, which signifies
properly the action of raising the eyes to heaven to implore its aid or receive
its inspirations.

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 Insidious Influence of Octavianus 239

with regard to the senate was a long deceit, and his equivocal
reign, where names opposed to the policy of the Republic
and the Emperor increased unceasingly, influenced so much
the reign of his successors, that they all received a false
colour which degraded them. Tiberius would not have been
led to rule by terror, neither would have Caligula nor Nero
committed so many useless cruelties, had it not been for the
false and ridiculous position in which the insidious and pusil-
lanimous politics of Octavianus had placed them.

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 CHAPTER VI

MISSION OF JESUS: ITS OBJECT-MISSION OF ODIN AND OF

APOU.ONIUS OF TYANA; TO WHAT END

ROME, subjected to Destiny, did not recover from the

blow which had destroyed her. Not daring de- to
clare that she was no longer free, she strove to force
herself by vain formulas; but this miserable recourse to
vanity turned to her disadvantage. Her citizens, basely
servile or insolently independent, annoyed their masters
equally by their adulation or their resistance. By turn
humiliated or broken, they knew not how to adopt the
golden mean of a legitimate submission. Disciples of Epi-
curus or of Zeno, imbued with principles of a philosophy
too lax or too strained, had passed alternately from a
systematic indolence to an ostentatious austerity; when
suddenly there appeared among them a society of new
men, ignorant and rude for the most part, but full of
extraordinary enthusiasm. These men, driven ahead by
an almost irresistible calling, strangers to all known systems,
attacked the errors of polytheism, unmasked the deceits
of the priests, the ruses of the philosophers, and, simple
in their morals, irreproachable in their manners, died
rather than deny the truths which they were entrusted to
proclaim.
These men, who were at first confused with a Jewish
sect called Namrenes, gave themselves the name of Chri.st-
240

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 Cult of Christians in Rome 241

ians on account of their Master, surnamed Christ. 1 Their

dogmas were little known; they were believed in general
to be sad and mournful; their priests, who adopted the black
colour, all spoke of the end of the world as very near at
hand, they announced the coming of a Great Judge, they
exhorted to repentance and promised expiation of sins
through the waters of baptism, and the resurrection of the
dead. As they assembled in secret in the most secluded
places, in caverns and in catacombs, to celebrate there a
mystery which was considered terrible and which they called
nevertheless by a very harmonious name, Eucharist, 2 the
Jews, their decided enemies, took every occasion to calum-
niate them and announced that in their nocturnal fetes,
they killed a child and afterwards ate it.
What chiefly impressed the leaders of the state in these
new men who were called Christians, was their intolerance;
accustomed as they were to consider religions only as human
institutions, they had fallen into a profound indifference
regarding the substance as well as the form, and did not
conceive how anyone could attach so great a value to such
or such dogma, or to such or such rite, to prefer them to all
others even at the risk of their lives. The Roman magis-
trates would have admitted the cult of Christ into Rome, as
they had admitted that of Serapis and Mithras, if its fol-
lowers could have endured the fusion; but it was precisely
this that they could not do without ce.asing to be themselves.
The Christians, persuaded that they alone recognized the
true God, that they alone rendered to Him a perfect worship
instituted by Himself, regarded all other religions, not only
with contempt but even with horror; they shunned cere-
monies as execrable abominations, and, transported by a holy
zeal, charged with madness and rebellion, disturbed the
From the Greek Xpurr6r, Christus. This word comes from the verb
XplftP, which means to anoint, to consecrate by unction. It is the exact
translation of the Hebrew word Meshlah.
From the Greek E6xapwrl4, thankfulness, gratitude.
10

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242 Hermeneutic Interpretation
mysteries and often maltreated the ministers. These
magistrates, persuaded that any religion which accused the
others of rendering to God an impious and sacrilegious wor-
ship tended to disturb the peace of the state, regarded, in
their turn, that religion as dangerous, and promulgated
against the Christians severe laws which were rigorously
executed. They imagined that a few seasonable attacks
would suffice to restrain these fanatics; but, to their astonish-
ment, they saw that it was precisely the contrary and that
the Christians, far from shrinking, eagerly offered them-
selves in crowds for death, braved torment, and, keen to
obtain the palm of martyr, offered to the rage of their execu-
tioners a serenity which froze the latter with fear.
It had been a long time since one had seen on earth men
subject to a Providential action which raised them above
the fatality of Destiny and which subdued the Will; then
one could see and judge their powers. Providence, which
had wished for such men, deemed them indispensa:ble. The
earth, which for a long time had been the prey to all sorts
of scourges, inclined, as I have shown, towards a perceptible
degeneration; all was born corrupt and withered before its
time. The Roman Empire founded under grievous condi-
tions, a shapeless mixture of republicanism and despotism,
could enjoy but an ephemeral eclat; this eclat, or rather this
gleam which appeared under the reign of the Antonines
from Vespasian to Marcus Aurelius, served only to render
more painful the darkness which ensued. This Empire,
though scarcely formed, collapsed, and whereas the one which
it had the pretension of succeeding had itself existed for
more than six thousand years,~two or three centuries sufficed
to dismember this one, and four to overthrow it completely. 1
If one wishes to apply here the rule which I have already applied to the
Empire of Cyrus, one will see that in the space of about three hundred and
sixty years from Augustus to Constantine, more than forty-five emperors
occupied the throne; which gives only about nine years to a reign. The Roman
Empire was then dismembered; that which was called the Em/>ire of1M Ouidnd
from Constantine to Augustulus, was nothing but chaos.

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 Jesus, The Saviour
The darkness which from the moment of its birth had be-
come thicker and thicker, covered at that time all the
Occident and for a long time held it plunged in a profound
night.
It was necessary that a new cult whose dogmas, inacces-
sible to reason and with inflexible forms, should submit like-
wise to Destiny. It was an immense effort on the part of
Providence. The man whom it summoned to fulfil this
terrible mission would without doubt be more than man, for
an ordinary man would have been crushed beneath the
overwhelming burden which was given him to bear. This
divine man was called Jesus, that is to say Saviour. 1 He
was born among these same Hebrews, to whom the keeping
of the Sepher of Moses had been confided fifteen centuries
before, and among those men of steadfast character, in the
sect of the N azarenes, the most rigid of all. 2
There had been nothing up to that time comparable
with the mental force of Jesus, His intellectual exaltation,
His animistic virtue. He was not learned according to man,
since it has been doubted whether He even knew how to
write; but the knowledge of the world was not necessary to
Him for His work. It would, on the contrary, have harmed
Him; faith only was necessary for Him; no one, either before
or since, made such a perfect surrender of the will. He
began His mission when thirty years old and finished it at
thirty-three. Three years sufficed for him to change the
face of the world. But His life, however long it had been,
with whatever miracles He had filled it, would not have
sufficed. It was necessary that He should wish to die, and
that He should have the power to rise from the dead. Won-
derful effort of human nature aided by Providence! Jesus
The name of Jesus is derived from the same root as those of Joshua and
Moses.
The Nazarenes, as their name -expresses, formed a congregation separated
from the other Jews, they distinguished themselves by parting their hair on
the top of the head, and, sometimes, by making a tonsure which has been
imitated by the Christian priests.

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244 Hermeneutic Interpretation
willed it, and found in it the means of delivering Himself to
death, to endure its tortures, and to subdue it with indomit-
able power. This king of terrors did not terrify him. I
pause. The ignorant or fanatical enthusiasts by their own
exaggerations have simply helped to destroy the most beau-
tiful act which the universe has ever witnessed. 1 But even
before Jesus had been called to subdue the assent of Man
and dominate his reason, Providence had raised up two men,
of a rank inferior to His, but equally strong in their way to
take possession of the animistic and instinctive faculties.
The first called Frighe son of Fridulphe, surnamed Wodan
by the Scandinavians, is known to us under the name of
Odin; the other, Apollonius, is designated by the name of
Apollonius of Tyana, on account of the small city of Cappa-
dacia in which he was born. These two men had different
success but both served by dividing the Will, to prepare it
to submit to the yoke which Jesus would give to it.
Frighe was of Celt or Scythian origin, as the name suffi-
ciently indicates. 2 An ancient historian of Norway states
that he commanded the Asa-folk, a people of Celtic origin
whose native land was situated between the Euxine and the
Caspian Sea. 3 It appears that in his youth he was attached
to the fortunes of Mithridates and commanded his armies
It is especially this that Klopstock has accomplished in his poem, as I
have mentioned in my DisciJUrs sur l'Essence ella forme tk la Polsie, p. 172.
The word Frighe is derived from Celtic root which develops the idea, to
set at liberty. It is remarkable that the name of the Franks is derived from
the same source. The name of Fridulphe, father of Odin, signifies the sus-
tainer of the peace.
3 Pliny, who speaks of the Asa-folk, places them in the environs of Mount
Taurus. Strabo cites a city named Asbourg, which appears to have been the
capital of the Asa-folk. This city is called Asgard in the Edda. The word
As signifies a prince and even a god in the primitive language of the Celts.
One finds it with the same signification of prince or of principle among the
Scandinavians, the Etruscans, and the Basques. The Romans used the word
As to express a unit of weights and measures. The French apply it today
to the first number on dice or on cards. It is from this very ancient word
that the name given to Asia is derived. In all the Atlantean dialects it
expresses the basis of things.

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 Asgard, City of Asa-folk 245
up to the time when this monarch, forced to yield to the
ascendancy of the Romans, killed himself. All the coun-
tries which depended upon the kingdom of the Empire
having been usurped, Frighe, not wishing to submit to the
yoke of the victor, retired towards the north of Europe
accompanied by those who shared his sentiments.
The Scandinavians, who bore at that time the name of
Cimbrians, implacable enemies of the Romans, received
them as allies. They opened their ranks to them and facili-
tated the accomplishment of the design which Providence
had upon them. Circumstances likewise singularly favoured
it. These peoples, who had started out to make an incur-
sion into Italy, had experienced a considerable check there.
A small number, escaped from destruction, nourished in the
depths of their hearts a violent desire for vengeance. At
sight of these fierce warriors who were already united by a
strong bond with them, the prince of the Asa-folk re-
alized that here was a condition of which he could take
advantage.
Frighe was a follower of Zoroaster, he knew, moreover,
all the traditions of the Chaldeans and the Greeks, as many
of the inst;tutions which he has left in Scandinavia conclu-
sively prove. He was initiated into the mysteries of Mithras.
His genius was heroic, and the elevation of his soul rendered
him susceptible to inspirations. The principal virtues of
the Cimbrians, in the midst of whom he found himself, was
warlike valour. The Celtic nation, I repeat, had not existed
for a long time. A continuous movement of peoples flowing
from north to south had almost effaced any trace of it.
The Romans occupied the most beautiful part of Europe.
Their cult had penetrated nearly everywhere. The Druids
preserved but a shadow of their ancient grandeur. The
voice of Voluspa had been long silent. None of these for-
tunate conditions which could favour him escaped the
disciple of Zoroaster; he saw at a glance that immense region
which extended from the Volga on the confines of Asia, to

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the shores of Armorica or Bretagne, to the extremities of
Europe, promised to his gods and to his arms. And in
truth, these beautiful and vast countries which we know to-
day under the names of Russia, Poland, Germany, Prussia,
Sweden, Denmark, France, England belonged to him or
became the conquests of his descendants; so that one can
say that there exists not a throne and not a royal family
in these nations that does not originate from him.
Frighe, in order not to alarm the peoples whom he wished
to conquer, halted with his companions in a place favourable
for his plans, and obtained permission to build there a city
which he called Asgard, after the name of his ancient native
land. There, skilfully displaying a new luxury, a religious
and warlike pomp, he attracted to him the surrounding
peoples, impressed with the magnificence and the eclat of
his ceremonies. Monarch and sovereign pontiff, he showed
himself at the head of his soldiers and at the foot of the altars;
he dictated his laws to the king and announced his dogmas
like a divine apostle. He acted then exactly as Mohammed
did about six centuries after him.
The changes which he made in the ancient religion of the
Celts were not great. The greatest was in substituting for
Teutad the great Ancestor of the Celts, a supreme God
called Wod or Goth, from whom the whole Gothic nation
afterwards received its name. It was the same that Zoro-
aster called Time without limit, the Great Eternity, the Buddha
of the Hindus, that Rama had found recognized in all Asia.
1 I have often spoken of this name. We must observe that it is applied
in India to the planet Mercury and to Mercredi, exactly as in the north of
Europe; but here it has been continued further as designating the Supreme
Being; whereas in Hindustan it is applied more particularly to the divine
Messengers and to the Prophets. This same name written and pronounced
God or Goth has remained that of God in the greater part of the septentrional
dialects, notwithstanding the change of cult and the establishment of Christian-
ity. It is confused with the word Gut which signifies good; but these two
words are not derived from the same root. The name of God or Goth comes
from the Atlantean WhOd, eternity, and the word gut or good comes from the
Celtic gut, the throat, whence gust, the taste.

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 Scandinavian Mythology 247
It is from the name of this supreme God W&l, called also
the Universal Father; the living God, the Greater of the World,
that Frighe received the name of Wodan, from which we have
made Odin, that is to say, the Divine.
The legislator of the Scandinavians united then, with
great force and sagacity, the doctrine of Zoroaster to that of
the ancient Celts. He introduced into his mythology an
Evil Genius called Loki 1 whose name was the exact transla-
tion of that of Ahriman; he gave to mankind the ancient
Bor as ancestor and continued to found all virtues upon
warlike valour. He taught positively, and this was the prin-
cipal dogma of his cult, that heroes alone enjoyed all celestial
felicities in Valhalla, the great hall of valour. 2
That is to say the enclosed, the compressed, the gloomy. Observe that
the Scandinavians, in attributing to Loki, Saturday, have assimilated the
Genius, of Evil, with Saturn.
In this manner Odin expressed himself regarding the lot which awaited
heroes on leaving this life, thus conforming to the ideas and customs of his
people: "Valhalla," he said, "that celestial abode of valour is vast enough to
contain all heroes whom glory brings there. Forty doors open to give en-
trance to this magnificent place. Eight heroes can pass through each, followed
by a multitude of spectators, going out to combat. For every day the bird
of dawning with the shining crested head makes the dwelling of the gods re-
sound with his song; the heroes awakened, hasten to their arms and range
themselves about the Father of Battles. They enter the lists and with inex-
pressible transports of courage and joy cut each other in pieces."
"It is their noble pastime. But as soon as the hour of repast approaches
they cease from fighting, forget their wounds and return to feast in the palace
of Wodan. The number of these warriors can never be so great that the flesh
of the wild boar Schrimnir cannot suffice to nourish them. Every morning
it is cooked and every night it becomes whole again. As for their drink it
flows from an equally immortal source. The vessels destined to contain it
are never empty. The Valkyries fill without ceasing the cups which they
present smilingly to these heroes." .
One sees that in the Valhalla of Odin, the Valkyries, that is to say, those
who search for the valiant, take the place of the Houris of the Paradise of
Mohammed. Both have imitated the houranis of Zoroaster. Observe as a
very singular thing and which supports what I have said, that the root of the
word houri, used by the Persians and the Arabs, is purely Celtic. One says
today in Gallic, hora, whore in English, hure in all the Teutonic dialects, etc.
It is true that the sense has become very base and that it expresses less than
a. courtesan: but it is in fa.ct from a change of customs. Formerly free love

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
was not condemned by the cult, quite the contrary. One sees that the Sans-
crit tJeoadq,si which the Celtic word translates lwra, signifies only a young woman
consecrated to the gods. The Greek J!lpwr, lor~e, comes from the same source,
or rather it is the root of the Celtic lwra and the Arabic /w#ri. This root
develops the idea of a creative Principle according to the Ionic or Pha!llician
system.

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 CHAPTER VII

CONQUESTS OF ODIN: HIS DOCTRINE AND THAT OF APOLLONIUS

-FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY

IN Tanais
the meantime, Odin, setting out from the banks of the
had advanced to the heart of Vandalia, today
Pomerania, subjecting to his laws all the peoples who hap-
pened on his way, either by the brilliancy of his bearing or
by the force of his arms. His renown and power increased
at each step, by the number of his proselytes and by that of
his subjects. Already Russia had submitted to his laws
and had received Suarlami, the oldest of his sons, to govern
it. Westphalia and western Saxony had been given by him
to Baldeg and to Sigdeg, two other sons of his. He had
added Franconia to his conquests, and had left it as an in-
heritance to his fourth son Sighe. From there, taking the
Scandinavian route through Cimbrian Chersonesus, he
passed into Finland, of which he took possession. This
country pleased him, and he built there the city of Odense
which still preserves in its name the memory of its founder.
The name of this city proves that at this epoch the name of
Woclan the Divine was already given to the prince of the
Asa-folk by the enthusiasm of its followers. Denmark
which submitted wholly to his arms, received as king,
Sciold the fifth son. This country, if one can believe the
Icelandic Annals, had not yet had a king, and it com-
menced thenceforth to be counted among the septentrional
249

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250 Hermeneutic Interpretation
powers. The successors of Sciold took the name of Sciol-
dungiens and reigned a considerable length of time.
At last Odin marched towards Sweden for the purpose
of conquering it, when Gylfe, king of that country, struck
with astonishment at the tales which he heard from all
sides, resolved to look into these rumours himself and to
find out whether he ought to attribute the success of the
prophet-conqueror to his prestige or to some divine inspira-
tion. Having conceived this plan he disguised his rank,
and, under the name of the old Gangler, came to the place
where the prince of the Asa-folk held his court. The author
of the Edda who relates this journey, said that Gylfe, after
having questioned the three ministers of Odin about the
principles of things, the nature of the gods, and the destiny
of the universe, was so struck by the wonderful things which
he heard, that being assured that Odin was a messenger
sent by Providence he descended from the throne to give
it to him. This event crowned the glory of the Theocrat.
Ynghe, his sixth son, having taken the crown of Sweden,
transmitted it to his descendants who took the name of
yngleingiens. Soon Norway imitated the example of Sweden
and submitted to the last son of Odin, called Soemunghe.
Meanwhile the Scandinavian legislator neglected nothing
to make his new states flourish and to found his cult there
upon a solid basis. He established at Sigtuna, the city of
Victory, today Stockholm, a supreme council composed of
twelve pontiffs whom he charged to look after the public
safety, to render justice to the people, and to preserve faith-
fully the archives of religious knowledge.
The historical debris which has come down to us repre-
sents Odin as the most persuasive of men. Nothing, say
the Icelandic chronicles, could resist the force of his address,
in which he often inserted verses composed extemporane-
The septentrional chronologists place this event sixty years before Christ;
now, the defeat of Mithridate& by Pompey dates from the year 67, which
coincides sufficiently.

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 Odin Regarded as Divine Messenger 251

ously. Eloquent in the temples, where his venerable mien

won for him all hearts, he was the most impetuous and the
most intrepid of warriors in battle. His valour, praised by
the bards his disciples, has been transformed by them into a
supernatural virtue. They have, in the course of time, en-
closed in his particular history all that which appertained
to the general history of the Borean Race, because of Bor,
who was their ancestor. Not content with confusing it with
W~d. the supreme God whom he had announced, they con-
fused him again with the ancient Teutad and have attri-
buted to him all the chants of Voluspa. The Icelandic
poems which still exist represent him as a god, master of the
elements, disposing at his pleasure of the winds and storms,
traversing the Universe in the twinkling of an eye, taking
all forms, raising the dead, and predicting the future. He
knew, according to these same legends, how to sing airs so
melodious, so tender, that the valleys were covered with
new flowers, the hills trembled with joy, and the shadows
drawn by the sweetness of his harmony emerged from the
depths and remained immobile about him.
These exaggerations were inevitable: one finds them ex-
pressed in the same manner for Rama, Orpheus, and Odin,
in the Ramayana of the Hindus, in the Greek mythology, and
in the Edda.
But, to re-enter the domain of positive history, this is
what is related as a certainty regarding the death of Odin.
This Theocrat, crowned with happiness and glory, would
not await in his bed a death slow and devoid of eclat. As
he had always declared, in order to strengthen the courage of
his warriors that those alone who died a violent death would
be worthy of celestial pleasures, he resolved to terminate
his life with the sword. Having then assembled his friends
and his most illustrious companions, he made nine wounds
in the form of a circle with the point of a lance, declaring
that he was going into Valhalla to take his place with the
other gods at the eternal feast.

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252 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Odin wishing, in accordance with the design of Provid-
ence, to form a valiant and audacious people and to found
an animistic cult, eminently impassioned, could die only as
he did die; his death was the masterpiece of his legislation.
Without being as heroic as that of Jesus, it was more so than
that of Apollonius of Tyana, and likewise put the seal upon
his doctrine.
Thus while a cult entirely intellectual, destined to domi-
nate reason was preparing itself in Judea, an animistic
doctrine, violent in its precepts, was established in Scandi-
navia, solely to prepare the way for this cult and to favour
its propagation, and, in the meantime, a man powerfully
instinctive, capable of great will power, passed through the
Roman Empire teaching that life is only a chastisement,
a painful medium between two states, indifferent in them-
selves, birth and death. This man, called Apollonius, fol-
lowed in the doctrine of Pythagoras what that doctrine held
most positive. His favourite axiom was that nothing per-
ished; that there were only appearances which were born
and which passed, whereas the essence always remained
the same, and, according to him, this primary Essence, both
active and passive, which is all in all, is nothing else than
the eternal God, who loses his name in our tongues through
the multitude and variety of things connoted. Man, he said,
going out from his state of essence to enter that of nature,
is born, and if on the contrary, he leaves that of nature
to enter that of essence, he dies; but indeed he neither is born
nor dies; he passes from one state to another, that is all; he
changes the mode without ever changing the nature or the
essence: for nothing comes from nothing and ends in nothing.
In spreading this doctrine, Apollonius weakened neces-
sarily the power of the Will. This power, thrown thus into
void, saw no longer an aim for its efforts, if indeed, as was
taught by Apollonius, it acted only upon appearances and
if the Universe were in reality only a divine automaton
indifferent to all forms.

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 Apollonius of Tyana 253
Apollonius led a most austere life. He performed many
miracles either of restoring the sick to health or in foretell-
ing future things. He had many disciples, and his success
was at first more striking than that of Jesus; but his doctrine,
not having the same basis, could not have the same duration.
After an existence of more than a century, he disappeared
as had Moses; and even Damis, the most cherished of his
disciples, could not say what had become of him. This
theosophist taught nothing new, properly speaking; but he
gave to the instinctive sphere an impulse which restored the
inner sight of man to the very elements of things. This
impulse was singularly favourable to the progress of Chris-
tianity, furnishing to its followers the opportunity of set-
tling many difficulties which embarrassed the minds of
philosophers.
At this epoch, a number of men whose most cherished
interest the elevation of the Roman Empire had injured,
indulged in introspection and turned upon themselves the
activity which they could no longer exert upon political
subjects. These men sought after the origin of the world,
and above all that of Matter, the cause of evils, the nature
and destination of Man. Now the Christians answered
this without the least hesitation. Their replies, it is true,
were brusque, but they were announced with that profound
and intense persuasion which penetrates and persuades.
They said that the World had been created by God Himself;
that Matter from which this World had been created, taken
from nothingness had been made of nothing; that the cause
of evils was owing to the mistakes of the first man, who,
created free and in the image of God, had transgressed his
commandments. And as to the nature and the destination
of Man, they were no more concerned than to say, that Man
was the creature of God, destined to be eternally happy in
heaven or eternally unhappy in the infernal regions, accord-
ing as he followed the way of virtue or that of vice.
Such decisive solutions, which, coldly offered, would

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254 Hermeneutic Interpretation
have disheartened indifferent minds, struck with astonish-
ment ardent ones who saw death recoil before the enthu-
siasm of their encouragers. The miracles performed by
Jesus, and above all His resurrection, affirmed by a multi-
tude of witnesses who had sealed their testimony with their
blood, were arguments difficult to destroy when one could
not deny their existence. x
At the point where these things happened, in consequence
of the deviation of the Will of Man, it was nevertheless diffi-
cult to prevent their entire dissolution, and Jesus, called
to this great work, would not have succeeded in arresting
it, even after the immense victory which He had won over
Destiny in triumphing over death its most terrible weapon,
if Providence had not again accorded the means by appear-
ing to the eyes of Saul and by changing the particular Will
of this man to the point of rendering him the most zealous
protector of its doctrine, whereas before this event, he was
the most desperate persecutor. Saul who afterwards
changed his name to that of Paul 2 was the real founder of
Christianity. Without him nothing would have been
effected. The twelve apostles whom Jesus left had not
the requisite force to fulfil their apostleship. Christianity
therefore owed to St. Paul its moral and dogmatic form and
its spiritual doctrine. Later it received its sacred forms and
rites from a theosophist of the school of Alexandria named
Ammonius.
We know well that in our day there are men so injudicious as to deny
the physical existence of Jesus. These men must have been very much per-
plexed by His Providential existence, to reach this height of absurdity.
The name of Saul comes from a root which reveals the idea of pride;
that of Paul, on the contrary, from a root expressing humility.

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 CHAPTER VIII

TWELFI'H REVOLUTION IN THE SOCIAL STATE-cONSTANTINE

IS FORCED TO EMBRACE CHRISTIANITY AND TO ABANDON
ROME-INVASION OF THE GOTHS-DOWNFALL OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE

BUTganizing
whilst all these things had come to pass, the disor-
movement which menaced the Roman Empire
commenced to manifest itself. It seemed that one might
already hear the dull cracking which announced the down-
fall of this badly constructed edifice. In the North, the
Bretons had revolted and had massacred the Roman legions.
In the South, the Jews, still covered with the blood of a
divine Messenger, but ever sustained by the hope of a libe-
rator to come, had tried many times to throw off the yoke.
Vanquished on all sides and dispersed among all the nations
of the earth, they carried their hatred with them. The
Parthians in Asia, the Goths in Europe, had already menaced
the frontiers. The germs of revolt which the genius of
Emperor Severus had restrained, developed with furor under
Caracalla. All passions which produce revolutions and
which upset states fermented from one end of the Empire
to the other. One saw more than twenty emperors in the
third century, nearly all raised to the throne by sedition
or by the murder of their predecessors. Scarcely had one
emperor been murdered and the crown seized by his assas-
sin, when three or four competitors, each at the head of an
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256 Hermeneutic Interpretation
army, disputed with him for it. The Roman senate, miser-
able instrument of the vilest passions, placed among the
number of the gods the most execrable tyrants. It did not
blush to award divine honours to Caracalla, the murderer
of his father and of his brother, the scourge of Rome and
horror of mankind. Polytheism, debased, could no longer
raise a barrier to these disorders.
It was in the midst of this trouble, while fire from heaven
encompassed the Capitol and plague destroyed the people
of the Orient, that the followers of Odin, after disturbances
on the frontiers, finally crossed them. At first, known under
the general name of Goths, they were soon distinguished
by the surnames which they gave themselves. The Franks
and the Sicambrians were the first known. These peoples
inflamed with a religious and warlike enthusiasm, not content
with attacking the Roman Empire in Europe, invaded even
her possessions in Asia and soon in Mrica. At first, they
were destroyed in great numbers; but no defeat could cool
their daring. They seemed reborn under the iron which
mutilated them as mythology relates concerning the Hydra
of Lerna. Vainly Claudius II. had massacred three hundred
thousand Goths, properly speaking, and Aurelian as many
2

Alemanni; these two victories did not prevent the Romans

a few years after from being obliged to cede to them Dacia
and Thrace. The Burgundians, Vandals, and Franks
succeeded each other and carried desolation everywhere.
Constantine, justly alarmed at the situation of the
Empire, seeing its moral part wholly corrupt and its physical
existence evidently compromised in the Orient, determined
to embrace the cult of the Christians to consolidate the
The name of Sicambrians (Sig-Kimbres) signifies the victoriousCimbrians.
I repeat that one should understand by the Goths, the followers of Odin
in general. The Sicambrians, Franks, Vandals, Alemanni, etc., are surnames
given to these same Goths, relative to their career or their customs, as those
of the Ostrogoths or Visigoths are relative to their geographical position.
The Goths, Gothans, or Gothins were with regard to Odin as were the Chris-
tians with regard to Christ.

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 Constantine Embraces Christianity 257
religious revolution which the force of things had brought
about and to transfer the imperial throne to the shores of the
Bosphorus. This double movement had become indis-
pensable. It was necessary to abandon a wom-out cult
which no longer offered any protection, and, in the midst of
the storm which was rising, to concentrate upon a point
bordering on Asia or on Europe, a part of the enlightenment
which Rome was no longer in a condition to preserve. This
audacious city, whose arrogance nothing could humble,
was given over to destruction. Whatever judgment poster-
ity may have concerning the private character of Constan-
tine, it remains none the less true that he was a man of
genius who judged his century and who performed with
intelligence and force what circumstances required of him.
Thus the Christian cult triumphed, and from the very
depths of the dust where it was hom it was raised suddenly
to the throne. It presented to the flood of barbarians, by
whom the Empire was inundated, a moral obstacle against
which all their efforts broke. Whereas nothing physical
could resist the violence of their impulse, this cult seized
them by spiritual bonds where the rage of their passions was
subdued. The darkness of ignorance advancing with them
had covered Europe and held it long plunged in a gloomy
atmosphere. An appropriate cult was necessary for this
painful condition, and Providence, having foreseen it, had
prepared everything that this cult might be established.
It had been placed by the intellectual force of its Founder
above the fatality of Destiny and the arbitrary power of
the Will, likewise vanquished by the voluntary sacrifice of
His life and by the victory which He had gained over death.
It is quite useless for me to pause at this awful epoch of
modem history. It is well known that the terrible Alaric,
the first who had the honour of taking and sacking Rome,
had been general of the army under Theodosius I., Emperor
of the East. One knows that Theodosius, who had employed
Alaric and his Goths to defeat his competitor Eugenius,
17

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258 Hermeneutic Interpretation
gave them a reward which was changed to tribute during
the reign of the weak Arcadius. However, Alaric discon-
tented with this tribute, and claiming more noble trophies,
left his tributary there to attack Honorius, Emperor of the
West. Stilicho, general of the armies of Honorius, who alone
was able to resist this formidable enemy, was afterwards
put to death by Honorius. Rome was taken, and the Empire
of the West destroyed. The followers of Odin, seeing it
unprotected, assembled there on all sides. Alaric had made
the breach; all the other barbarians hastened there and
wished to take part in the pillage. The Vandais seized
Spain; the Burgundians and Franks invaded Gaul; the
Visigoths took possession of Oscitania; the Lombards in-
undated Italy. The Romans, forced to evacuate Great
Britain, met on all sides only reverses. During this time,
the Huns, led by the fierce Attila, menaced at the same time
the vanquished and the victors, pillaged and massacred
whatever they found before them, without distinguishing
either cult or name, and added to the general confusion.
Finally, Odoacer, at the head of his Heruli, arrived in the
midst of the disorder, entered Rome, and dethroned Augus-
tulus in 476 A.D. Some years after, Clovis, King of the
Franks achieved the conquest of Gaul, begun by Merovreus
and Childeric, and founded there the kingdom of France. It is
well known how Clotilda, his wife, daughter of Childeric, King
of the Burgundians, persuaded him to embrace Christianity.
This event was of the highest importance; in submitting the
cult of Odin to that of Jesus, it consolidated the designs
of Providence and saved European society from the assured
ruin into which the fatality of Destiny had dragged it.
It must not be forgotten that the Goths, by whose hands
the Roman Empire was overthrown, under whatever names
they present themselves in modern history, were the fol-
lowers of Odin formed of a conglomeration of Asiatic and
European tribes descended from the North. They had the
characteristics, manners, laws, and almost the same cult as

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 Goths Proscribe Arts and Sciences 259

the primitive Celts. As their sole virtue was their warlike

valour, they were ignorant of all accomplishments, all the
sciences of pure speculation, and they gloried in ignoring
them. The hatred which they nourished for the Roman
name and which their legislator had inculcated in them some
five or six centuries before had rendered odious to them
everything that was attached to it; this name was for them
the expression of everything base and cowardly, vicious and
avaricious, that one could imagine. They held in horror
the sciences and the arts cultivated by the Romans and
attributed to these the state of degradation into which this
people had fallen. r
Thus, wherever the Goths turned their steps, their
tracks were stained with blood and their presence bespoke
devastation; the most fertile provinces were converted into
deserts, cities were destroyed, fields were burned, the in-
habitants killed or dragged into slavery, and soon famine
and pestilence added to the horrors of war and crowned
the desolation of the peoples. Not for two thousand years
had the universe been the prey of so many scourges at once.
The contemporaneous writers who had had the misfortune
to be witnesses of these scenes of devastation and carnage
had difficulty in finding expressions strong enough to depict
all the horrors. 2
They included in this proscription even the art of writing. So that it is
only to the Greek or Latin historians that we owe the few conceptions that
we have regarding them. When, having recovered from their prejudices,
they began to write their annals, the memory of their origin was wholly lost.
Jornande;. Paul Wamefride, Gregoire de Tours, although the most ancient
and most accredited of their historians, give only confused and unsatisfactory
information concerning their origin, manners, and laws.
Procopius said that it was through a sentiment of humanity that the
details of the cruelties practised by the Goths were not transmitted to poster-
ity in order not to terrify it by these monuments of barbarism. !dace, an
eye witness of the desolation which followed the invasion of the Vandals in
Spain, said that when these barbarians had ravaged all with the utmost fero-
city, pestilence came to add its horrors to this calamity. The famine, he said,
was so general, that the living were obliged to feed upon corpses. St. Augus-
tine confirmed the tale of these evils. The shores of Mrica were as ill-treated

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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Europe, laid waste, was covered imperceptibly with
uncultivated lands and fetid marshes; civilization was
succeeded by the most frightful barbarism.
Italy herself, the centre of luxury and of art, this country
where agriculture was pursued with an extreme care, was so
put to confusion by the barbarians, that still in the ninth
century it was covered with forests which served as haunts
for savage beasts.
When this violent storm had somewhat calmed, when
the victors, fatigued with murders and devastations, rested
upon the debris which they had accumulated, the vast politi-
cal body called the Roman Empire, miserably rent, was
divided into many small states between which all communi-
cation was interrupted. Commerce was abandoned; the
most useful arts found artisans no longer; agriculture like-
wise was neglected; pirates alone traversed the seas; inhabi-
tants of distant parts of the same kingdom could hold no
intercourse. The least journey was a perilous undertaking;
chained by a thousand obstacles to the place where fate
had caused them to be born, most men were ignorant of the
names of other countries, and having fallen into adversity
they retained no idea of their ancient prosperity.

as those of Europe. It is stated that in the single war of the Vandals more
than five million men perished.
' Communication was so difficult, there was so little commerce among men,
that even towards the end of the tenth century an abbot of Cluny in Burgundy,
having been solicited to come and direct the monks in a monastery near Paris,
excused himself saying that he did not wish to risk his life journeying in a
strange and unknown region. More than a century later at the beginning of
the twelfth the monks of Ferrieres, in the diocese of Sens, did not know that
there existed in Flanders a city called TourMi and the monks of St. Martin
de Tournai were likewise ignorant of the whereabouts of the convent of
Ferrieres. An affair which concerned the two convents obliged them to have
some communication; they sought each other with great trouble, and found
each other finally only by mere chance. Geography was so little understood
that the respective places of the three divisions of the world were not even
known. On maps fabricated in these times of ignorance, Jerusalem was
placed in the middle of the earth and Asia, Africa, and Europe so scattered
around that Alexandria was as near to the holy city as Nazareth.

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 CHAPTER IX

REFLECTIONS UPON THESE EVENTS--SITUATION OF PRIEST-

HOOD AND ROYALTY-NEW DEVIATIONS OF THE WILL

T HUS the European population found itself, after many

vicissitudes, more or less painfully in the same state
whence it had issued several thousand years before. There
was, however, this advantage for it, that it had the experi-
ence of the past, and that a providential cult, raising around
it protecting barriers, defended it against its own ignorance
and against its own madness. The Will, violently restrained
by these last events, submitted one part to the yoke of
Destiny and the other to that of Providence. It was a
question of seeing whether, coming out from the state of
oppression, it would freely recognize either one or the other
of these two powers, allying itself to one in particular or
serving them as a common bond. On the one side was the
civil and military authority; on the other, the spiritual and
priestly authority. At first these two authorities hardly
recognized each other; still agitated by the reiterated blows
which the political body had just experienced, being badly
established, badly arranged, sometimes too m~ch confused,
and sometimes too much separated, they ignored their
reciprocal limits and their true functions. For about two
centuries, during the invasion, it was impossible to distin-
guish anything through the thick gloom which the barba-
rians brought with them; one scarcely suspected whether
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262 Hermeneutic Interpretation
there was a sovereign pontiff and this sovereign pontiff
knew not in the midst of the storm whether monarchs still
existed. But, at last, when reappearing calm permitted
the state of things to be examined, it was seen with astonish-
ment, not only that these two authorities had no knowledge
of each other, but the diverse members, of whom they were
composed, recognized each other still less; so that under the
appearance of a sacerdotal and royal rule there were in truth
only two anarchies whose efforts tended to dominate each
other.
Notwithstanding the blows which had just fallen upon
it, this indomitable European Will persisted in its movement.
Incapable of throwing off two yokes as rigorous as those of
Jesus and of Odin, which it carried together, it sought to
destroy them by dividing them; and this it attained. Al-
ready Christianity, attacked at its very foundations, had
been disturbed by a number of bold innovators called Arch-
Heretics, owing to the peculiar opinions which they professed.
Whereas some ; egarded Jesus as even God, descended from
heaven to enlighten men, others wished to see in Him only a
celestial genius, a divine prophet, and even a man inspired
as Moses, Orpheus, or Socrates. If, on one side, men at-
tached to orthodoxy, such as Berylle and Paul de Samosata
tried to establish the mysteries of the Trinity and that of
the Incarnation; on the other, Arius and Macedonus at-
tacked them with violence. Artemon and Theodoret found
the dogmas of Christianity too obscure and its morals too
severe and suddenly Montanus and his eucharists arose, who
pretended to be called there, to bring still more obscurity
and rigour. The discipline of the Church, the worship of
the Virgin had also a host of followers. There were philo-
sophical or systematic Christians who sought in good faith
to make the mysteries of Christianity conformable to the
ideas which reason furnished them, striving to explain by
the doctrine of Pythagoras or of Plato, by the system of the
Emanations of the Chaldeans, by the belief in the principles

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 Arch-Heretics
of Zoroaster; Valentine, Basil, Saturnin, Carpocrates, Mar-
cien, Bardesanes, and above all Manes, made themselves
noticeable in this way.
In the midst of this tumult, the sovereign pontiffs,
called Patriarchs or Popes, who should have been invested
with sufficient force to establish the orthodoxy of the Church,
maintaining its rights and suppressing the innovators,
saw with consternation that they were stripped of real
authority; that their decisions were not respected on any
side and that, forced to adhere to the movements of the
multitude, they had to sanction alternately the pro or the
con, according as the pro or the con was adopted by
the majority of certain assemblies called Councils, to which
general opinion wished that they should be submitted.
To cap the evil, these sovereign pontiffs, despoiled thus of
all sovereignty, and finding at that time no weapon in their
hand sufficiently strong to arrest the progress of the heresies,
-since the heretics would submit neither to their decisions
northeir anathemas,-irritated at the resistance, and yielding
to the passions which never fail the heart of a man of utmost
integrity when he believes the Divinity interested in his
own cause; these pontiffs, I say, accustomed to consider as
criminals men who were only dissenters, denounced them
to the civil authority of the monarchs. The latter, flattered
at taking this advantage over the priesthood, and without
perceiving the terrible disadvantage that it would entail in
consequence, gave their support, and converted into affairs
of state, religious quarrels which ought to have been confined
and extinguished within the precincts of the Church. Ban-
ishment, exile, loss of property, and death were decreed
against these opinions. The Christians, at first persecuted,
became persecutors; blood flowed and the parties alternately
victors saw no other evil in the state than that of not
entirely exterminating the opposed party.
Thus, then, the Christian priesthood allowing itself to
be usurped by republican forms--submitting, contrary to

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264 Hermeneutic Interpretation
all reason, its supreme chief to the will of an assembly,
ignoring this chief, disputing with him his rank, title, and
authority-delivered itself to anarchy and surrendered to
nullity or despotism. It authorized the monarchs not to
recognize that which it did not recognize and provoked that
scandalous contest which during more than a thousand years
affiicted Europe. The importance which it gave to heresies
multiplied them; the appeal which it made to civil power
rendered it dependent upon this body, and, when in the
thirteenth century, it was divided and destroyed, it could
attribute its division and destruction only to these same
republican forms, which a foolish pride, an undisciplined
will had caused it to adopt.
These unusual forms by which the monarchs had at
first skilfully profited to diminish the influence of the sover-
eign pontiffs and to escape from their supervision were,
moreover, a two-edged sword whose blows they soon felt;
for since they considered it right for the authority to be
divided on the one side and submitted to the sanction of the
sacerdotal body, they could not find it wrong on the other,
that it was so and that the feudal body dominated them.
This reaction was all the more inevitable, as it was more
natural for the barons to regard themselves as independent
of the kings, as it was for the priests to consider themselves
as freed from obedience towards their supreme chief. The
hordes of Goths, who, under different names, invaded the
Roman Empire, were by no means composed of mercenary
soldiers subject to a despot, but savage men led by a chief,
their equal and conquerors for themselves. Before under-
It appears certain that, at about this epoch, some sort of revolution had
placed upon the head of the mayor the crown of khan and that in consequence,
the hereditary civil power existed no more. The chiefs of the barbarians who
inundated the Roman Empire, were not then kings, properly speaking, but
tMyors, whose power, purely military, was elective. They did not take the
title of king until later, when the conquest, and particularly the change of
cult, had consolidated their authority. They distinguished themselves once
more from the mayors, so as to sanction heredity in their house; but they were

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 End of Universal Empire
taking any affair, they deliberated in common and decided
with the majority. The authority of the chief was limited
to executing the general will. Mter the conquest, each
warrior regarded the portion of land which fell to his lot,
with the several families which were dependent on it, as a
recompense for his valour. He revived in these countries
nearly all the customs, nearly all the laws which had existed
(ormerly, of which I spoke at the beginning of this work;
but with this notable difference, that finding no unity in
the new cult which he adopted, he did not concern himself
about putting it in the royal government; each baron con-
sidered himself as absolute master of himself, and recognized
no other obligation than that of following the king to war;
and, constituting himself his own judge and his own avenger,
he depended only upon God and his sword. At that time,
Europe was broken up into an infinity of little sovereignties
whose extent was often limited to the donjon where the
sovereign resided.
Such was the end of the Universal Empire, and such had
been its commencement. This Empire after having reached
its highest degree of elevation descended to the lowest
degree of abasement. It remained in this condition for a
considerable time according to circumstances and accord-
ing as the action of the three great Powers of the Universe
would again be united to accomplish its reconstruction.

not long in submitting to the influence of the military power which finally
usurped the civil power and claimed all its rights. It was in the person of
Pepin, King of France, that the definite union of royalty with the mayoralty
was effected. Pepin did not, however, give his name to his race, because he
was not judged legitimate king; this honour was left to his son Charles.

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 CHAPTER X

CURSORY VIEW OF THE STATE OF ASIA-MISSION OF MOHAM

MED AND ITS RESULTS-THIRTEENTH REVOLUTION

IT spread
is necessary to remark that at the time when darkness
more and more over Europe and covered the
western part of the hemisphere, the east and the south of
Asia recommenced to enjoy some light. The violent storms
which had agitated China after the reign of the famous
Tsin-che-hoang had subsided and this Empire had after-
wards enjoyed a considerable splendour. Many men of
genius had appeared in her midst. There was seen for the
first time a Chinese embassy crossing its frontiers, traversing
Upper Asia, Persia, a part of Europe and India to draw new
knowledge from their sciences and arts. The Japanese
had been subjected to a tribute and Korea had been con-
quered. The Great Wall, undertaken formerly for the pur-
pose of preventing the invasions of the Tartars, but which
fell in ruins after several centuries, had been raised again,
and covered an extent of more than five hundred leagues.
At last, one of the most wonderful inventions which has
honoured the human mind, that of paper, advanced the
progress of science. 2
The one who wished to annihilate -all the literary monuments prior to
his reign, and who united all the empire under him after baving destroyed
the seven kingdoms which bad formerly composed it-221 B.c.
This wonderful invention dates from 105 B.c.
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 Progress of Science Advances 267

India was likewise flourishing; the reign of the celebrated

King Vikramaditya had reproduced all that had formerly
been remarkable in this country; poetry had especially been
cultivated with great success. It seemed that these peoples,
already old, but still vigorous and healthy, took upon them
a new life after the violent malady which had menaced their
existence.
A new dynasty, that of the Sassanians, sprang up in
Persia, and this kingdom, embellished and better governed,
had conquered Arabia. r
Nor had Mrica remained idle and without its portion
of glory; the Abyssinians had even penetrated several
times into Yemen, and had tried to introduce Christianity
there.
In general, the fifth and sixth centuries, which were for
Europe an epoch of desolation and of barbarism, were for
Eastern Asia, and particularly for China, centuries of luxury
and of magnificence. Some distinguished theosophists,
such as Sotoctais of Japan and a new Buddha among the
Siamese, had even made this epoch illustrious; when Pro-
vidence, judging the miserable state into which the Will of
Man, always refractory to its laws, had brought Europe, see-
ing the royal power without force and the priesthood without
virtue (both given over to endless divisions which had re-
duced them to the most absolute nullity) contemplating
Rome and Constantinople after they had become the centre
of interminable quarrels, schisms, and heresies as ridiculous
in substance as in form, without hope of bringing back for
a long time to sacerdotal and royal unity, minds so divided
by their own interests and their particular passions; Pro-
vidence, I say, wished at least to arrest this flood which,
threatening to invade entire Asia, could take away the rem-
nant of the grandeur which was manifested there. Already,
as I have said, the Abyssinians, imbued with the heterodox
The commencement of the dynasty of the Sassanians was from 155 B.c.,
and the conquest of Arabia from 240 A.D.

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268 Hermeneutic Interpretation
opinions of some Greek monks, had tried to introduce them
into Arabia. Asia Minor, corrupted by the opposed doc-
trines of a host of arch-heretics, had almost involved Persia
in exciting the ambition of a young prince,son of KingNour-
shirvan.' It was evident that there was not a moment
to lose, a very strong barrier was necessary to separate
Asia from Europe and it was Mohammed who was commis-
sioned to raise it. 2
Mohammed was, like Odin, a man powerfully animistic,
capable of a passionate enthusiasm, and was like Jesus
endowed with a will of extraordinary force. He was not
learned, but he himself recognized his ignorance, and he
knew how to take advantage of it and how to make the most
wonderful part of his inspiration felt. He is the only prophet
who has said of himself that he could not penetrate the
future, and that he was not sent to perform miracles, but
only to govern men and to teach them the truth. 3 Moham-
med, left to himself and acting by his own faculties, was an
ordinary man, very loving, of a gentle, modest disposition,
a friend of peace, and taciturn; but when he yielded to the
divine spirit which took possession of his soul, nothing
could resist the impetuous outbursts of his eloquence; the
fire of his glance consumed souls, by his voice he exerted a
supernatural authority; one had to follow him or shun him.
When at the age of fifty-two, an iniquitous persecution for
He is the same whom our historians named Chosroes or Cyrus the Great.
His son, blinded by the zeal of some Christian priests, took arms against him
after having embraced their cult. But the monarch, having discovered and
punished the crime of the prince, conceived such a hatred against the religion
to which he attributed it, that, after having proscribed it in his states, he
attacked it on all sides wherever he could reach it.
Mohammed was born about 569 or 570 A.D. He began his apostolate
at the age of forty-two years, 612 A.D., and was banished to Mecca in 622. It
is from this epoch that the glory of Mohammed dates and the era of the Mus-
sulmans called Hegira, because their Prophet was obliged to flee to Medina.
The miracles which have since been attributed to him are either allegories
wrongly interpreted or ridiculous impostures with which his fanatical friends
or rather his enemies have charged his memory.

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 Glory of Mohammed
which he was unprepared, forced him to flee his native land
and resort to arms, he displayed an intrepidity and military
ability which none of his enemies had suspected. The
warlike enthusiasm with which he imbued his disciples is
beyond all expression; Odin himself could not have inspired
a greater.
It is to be observed here, that if Jesus had wished to
follow the road of conquests which was opened before Him,
when the people of Galilee offered Him the crown, and if He
had put Himself at the head of the Jews who awaited a
conquering Messiah, He would inevitably have conquered
Asia; but Europe would have resisted Him, and, as it was
in Europe that He was to exercise His influence principally,
He had to choose a victory much less brilliant at first, but
much greater indeed in the future, and He had to resolve to
overcome the fatality of Destiny rather than to make use
of it.
Jesus had inherited the inspiration of Moses, Mohammed
inherited the inspiration of Moses and that of Jesus, which
he recognized as equally divine; but he alleged that the fol-
lowers of Moses had deviated from his doctrine and that
the disciples of Jesus had misunderstood that of their Master. 1
He restored in consequence the absolute Unity of God,
such as the Hebrews had received from the Atlantean tradi-
tion, and all his religion was contained in these few words:
There is no God but GOD and Mohammed is His prophet.
Moreover, he established with the greatest force the immor-
tality of the Soul and the dogma of chastisements and of
future recompenses, according to the vices and the virtues
of men; but, wishing to impress the animistic imagination of
the multitude, he, like Odin carefully confonned to the
1 It is worthy of comment, that this was the same reproach as the oracles

of polytheism constantly addressed to the Christians. These oracles, consulted

about the new religion and the unusual intolerance of its followers, replied
that one must not accuse Jesus of these excesses, but His disciples only, who
had corrupted His doctrine; Jesus being a divine man, the most wonderful
of all those who had appeared upon earth.

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270 Hermeneutic Interpretation
ideas of his people, in the picture which he presented to
them of the delights which awaited his elect. In the Val-
halla of Odin, the warlike Scandinavians fought each other
and drank; in the paradise of Mohammed, the voluptuous
Asiatics enjoyed an enchanting repose and all the delights
of love.
One should not forget that the Atlantean tradition con-
cerning the absolute Unity of God had been principally
preserved by the Bodohnes Celts, who after becoming mixed
with the Atlanteans of Mrica had constituted the Arab
people and afterwards the Hebrew people, by refusing to
submit to the Phrenician yoke; so that this tradition, having
been brought back without alteration to its source, acquired
in the mouth of Mohammed an authority all the greater,
as he cleverly detached any foreign element that might
have been inserted among the Hebrews by the frequenting
of the Chaldeans, who had become disciples of Zoroaster
and Krishna; that is to say, the Duality of the cosmogonic
principles and the Trinity of the divine faculties. He main-
tained with great force the dominance of the masculine faculty
over the feminine, and did not forget that Moses, in attri-
buting to woman the first sin, had made her subject to man.
Accordingly, he instituted the dogma of polygamy which
was claimed by the custom of his people and the immemorial
custom of Asia. He neglected thus the influence of women
which had helped so much and which would help so much
again in the establishment of Christianity in Europe. 1
But the success brilliant as rapid, obtained by the doctrine of
Islamism, proved that it was not needed.
. Mohammed was already master of Mecca and of a great
I have said that it was Clotilda who persuaded Clovis to embrace Chris-
tianity. A sister of the Emperors Basil and Constantine, married to a gmnd
duke of Russia, named Volodimer, induced her husband to be baptized. About
the same time, Miscislas, Duke of Poland, was converted by his wife, sister
of the Duke of Bohemia. The Bulgarians received the cult in the same manner.
Giselle, sister of Emperor Henry, made her husband, King of Hungary, a
Christian. The same thing happened in England.

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 The Passing of Mohammed 271

part of Arabia when he died; his death, which he had fore-

told and announced in his Koran, far from diminishing the
enthusiasm of his followers, appeared to increase it further.
It was worthy of his life. He did not take it, as did Odin,
but he accepted it, and perhaps it testified to a greater
soul. In a few years, his successors, who took the title of
Caliphs, vanquished the Persians at that time dominating
Asia, seized all their possessions, entered Jerusalem in
triumph, conquered Egypt, and, already masters of an im-
mense empire, in less than a century were established in
Spain and from there threatened frightened Europe.
Mter having seized Aquitania and all the coast of Pro-
vence as far as Avignon, the Saracens, for it was thus they
were called, 2 had advanced to the very heart of France,
when Charles Martel, coming upon them in the plains of
Poitiers, gained over them the famous battle which put to
an end for a long time their progress in Europe. This
victory has been much lauded and no doubt with reason,
since the one who was chosen to effect it had all the necessary
qualities for this; but it was inevitable. Europe would
not have been entirely vanquished without the face of the
world being changed and the influence of Mohammed did
not reach so far. The particular results which this victory
brought about for France was the extinction of the race of
Clovis, the elevation of that of Charles Martel, the corona-
tion of Pepin, and the prophetic reign of Charlemagne, of
which I will speak later on.
Mohammed, besides, committed a grave mistake which
shortened much the duration of the Caliphate. He did not
think of separating the sword from the censer, and, as he
Mohammed, after having been to the temple to give his last sermon and
his last prayer, returned to his palace and lay down. His daughter, Fatima,
was at his bedside with several of his disciples. Taking his daughter's hand he
said: "Behold Death at the door, asking permission to enter" and after
a moment of contemplation, having embraced his daughter for the last time,
he turned towards the door and added: "Let him enter!" and he expired.
That is to say the rulers of Asia.

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had united both in his hand, he transmitted them thus to
his successors; but should this mighty theocrat have ex-
pected that there would always be a hand firm enough to hold
them together? This was not the case. Mter the glorious
reign of Haroun-al-Raschid, the Caliphate fell into decadence,
and already towards the beginning of the twelfth century, the
Caliph Radhi reigned in Bagdad only under the guardian-
ship of the Emir, chief of his guard. This Emir, becoming
more and more powerful, no longer had any considera-
tion. Mter having made sure of a body of Tartars called
Turks, which he had under his command, he made himself
master of the very person of the Caliph Kaiem, prostrating
himself before him and conducting him to the palace which
was to serve him as a prison; while holding the bridle of his
mule under the appearance of outward respect he stripped
him of all temporal power.
From this time the priesthood was distinguished from
royalty in the Moslem cult; but as this distinction was ac-
complished by force, a veritable union never existed be-
tween them. Nevertheless, as the dogma of Destiny had
been admitted by Mohammed, the priesthood submitted
promptly enough and did not abandon themselves to a
contest as stubborn as in Europe.
Although the duration of the Caliphate was not so long
as it might have been, it was, however, sufficient to fulfil
the aim of its institution. Europe was restrained. The
gloom which had covered it was tempered by its klat, the
sciences and arts cultivated in Spain by the care of the Arabs
could spread and be propagated there more easily when the
auspicious moment had arrived for this.
This usurper was called Orlognil-beg. The Ottoman race, which descends
from him, dates its power from this event, which bappeoed in 1050 A.D.

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 CHAPTER XI

REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE-FOURTEENTH REVOLUTION-THE

CRUSADEs-TAKING OF JERUSA.LEM BY THE CHRISTIANS
-TAKING OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE lWSSUI.JlAN9-
CAUSES AND RESULTS OF THESE THREE GREAT EVENTS

F ROM the epoch of the invasion of the Goths, the down-

fall of the Roman Empire, and the extinction of learn-
ing in the West, till the time when learning commenced to
revive after a space of a thousand years, that is to say, from
the fifth to the fifteenth century, several remarkable events
occurred in Europe, among which three are especially dis-
tinguished : the reign of Charlemagne, the taking of Jeru-
salem by the Crusaders, and that of Constantinople by the
Mussulmans. The first and the last of these events were
the work of Destiny. The middle one depended only upon
the Will of Man which awoke in the eleventh century as
from a long stupor. My intention being to return many
times to these major events and even to examine somewhat
in detail the interval of time which separates them, I shall
be content to sketch the most salient features.
Charlemagne was the first monarch of modern times,
whose genius having risen to high conceptions, dared to form
the project of re-establishing the Roman Empire destroyed
more than three centuries before, and to build upon its
debris the foundations of a new universal empire. This
extraordinary man, especially so for the time when he lived,
18 273

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a giant raised above a people of pygmies, succeeded at first
in his enterprise. Fortunate conqueror and able politician,
he covered Europe with his trophies and seized in Rome
the imperial crown which was offered to him by Pope Leo.
The Empire which he possessed surpassed even that of the
Romans in the West.' But this unexpected splendour
which had not been looked for was for France a sort of
aurora borealis which, appearing suddenly out of the gloom,
dissipated it for a moment only, in order that all the depths
might be perceived.
This effort of Destiny could not last. To consolidate
the astonishing effects, it would have been necessary for
Charlemagne to consider making Providence intervene; but
his intelligence was not open on this side. Forgetting that
his father Pepin was only a mayor, elevated to the throne
in place of a legitimate king whose doubtful and wavering
authority was sustained by the assent of the sovereign
pontiff, he depended solely upon the force of his genius and
his arms. He disdained to found the edifice of his grandeur
upon the solid basis of religion. He embraced the cult for
policy and propagated it for ambition and rendered to the
pope only an illusory homage; although he feigned to receive
the imperial crown from his hands, he took care not to
recognize openly his authority, and, being vexed by some
condescending acts, some frivolous presents, he indicated
haughtily that he did not pretend dependence upon the
priesthood, from the time when at Aix-la-Chapelle he com-
manded his son Louis, whom he had associated with him
in the Empire, to take the crown himself from the altar,
not wishing him to receive it from a pontiff. This insolent
pride, which has been imitated sometimes, has always
succeeded badly. This crown for which Charlemagne dis-
dained to be indebted to Providence did not remain long
It comprised Italy to Calabria, Spain to the Ebro, all of Gaul, !stria,
Dalmatia, Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, Poland to the Vistula, and all
of Germany.

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 Charlemagne 275
in his line. Mter having been the pretext of many misfor-
tunes, it fell from the head of Louis le Debonnaire to that
of the Count of Franconia, as I will relate further on.
I have said that the reign of Charlemagne was the work
of Destiny, and that the event which followed-the taking
of Jerusalem, the principal object of the Crusades-was
that of the Will of Man. One will ask, perhaps, how these
two events could be placed in the same class and what is
the means of recognizing this classification. If any one
should ask this question, I should be more than content,
as it would furnish me the occasion of settling many like
questions regarding which I have not paused because, too
full of my subject and considering the thing too obvious
according to the previously given principles, I have neglected
to do so. Besides, in a work of this kind, one can neither
say all at once nor explain all at the same time; the mind of
the writer must speak of things as they suggest themselves,
and it would be unjust for an impatient reader to accuse
him of obscurity before having finished reading the whole
work. It is only by the whole that one can judge the details.
This is why a second reading is indispensable to those who
would grasp any system, no matter how it may be unfolded.
The reign of Charlemagne was the work of Destiny,
because it depended upon the position of this monarch and
his particular genius, and upon all the previous events
which had brought about the coronation of Pepin, his father.
No one but himself wished the end toward which he in-
clined; often no one saw it. His ascendancy alone brought
about all things which would have stopped, if he had stopped,
and which, indeed, ceased to go on as soon as he ceased to
be. Nothing around him moved unless he moved. His
prophetic impulse was so necessary that, as soon as it no
longer existed, all the machinery of his government was out
of order. The edifice, which he had raised with a thousand
hardships, collapsed as soon as it was no longer sustained by
him, because the wills which had seconded him in its es-

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tablishment were all passive; his alone was active in his own
destiny. If Charlemagne had interested Providence in his
work, his work would have continued exactly in proportion
to the providential action which he would have evoked. Do
you wish to know how? I shall tell you and unfold a great
mystery. His work would have continued, because Pro-
vidence would have continued to conduct it. In relying
on his destiny, he entrusted himself to a transitory effect,
which could not stretch itself beyond its cause, and, as it
reserved nothing beyond this life, his death was the limit
of his labours.
Now, let us turn to the Crusades. The movement
which produced them was inherent in the moving mass.
All the exterior wills appeared to unite in one interior will
which was fixed upon the same object: to rescue Jerusalem
from the Infidels. The commonest rascal did not differ
on this point of sentiment from the monarch, and the destiny
of the one, as the destiny of the other, was likewise forced to
follow the given impulse, which came neither from the former
nor from the latter; no one knew whence it came. It was a
whirlwind which was very difficult to avoid, and one could not
escape from it after one had once entered it. The intensity of
its movement was increased in proportion to its mass, and its'
mass in proportion to its movement. In a whirlwind of this
nature, which one may call a volitive whirlwind, the centre
is everywhere; it fails in effect until it settles, and this can
be accomplished only by Destiny or by Providence. In a
prophetic whirlwind, as that of Charlemagne, for example,
the centre is only at one single point; if this point fails, all
fails, unless the Will of Providence assists it. The Will
was nothing and Providence was no longer invoked in the
time of Charlemagne. During the Crusades, there was no
destiny capable of regulating the movement and of calling
Providence to it. Thus this immense whirlwind had only
very mediocre results, where they were specially anticipated.
If one can believe the testimony of contemporaneous

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 Crusades-Council of Piacenza 277

authorities, six million men took the cross. Entire Europe,

according to a Greek princess writing the history of her father,
seemed torn from its foundations and ready to precipitate
itself with all its might upon Asia. A powerful leader was
needed, a man capable of conceiving a great thought and of
executing it, but there was none, and torrents of blood flowed
to no purpose.
The ostensible reason assigned for this extraordinary
movement was the rumours which suddenly spread in Europe
that the end of the world was coming. Consternation was
general. Many men, as credulous as pious, assembled in
great haste at Jerusalem, where they imagined that J csus
Christ would soon reappear to judge men. The Turks,
who had been masters of Palestine since they had divested
the Caliphs of their authority, did not welcome this influx
of Christians and maltreated many of them. One of these
maltreated pilgrims, known under the name of Peter the
Hermit, returned to Europe, related his troubles, and excited
the Christians to vengeance. The Christian Church was
stirred. The Council of Piacenza at which more than thirty
thousand persons were present decided war against the In-
fidels, and that of Clermont, still more numerous, confirmed
this decision.
It was, as I have said, an immense movement of the
Will which manifested itself. If there had been found a
providential or prophetic man, that is to say, a man of
genius who could have attached either Providence or Destiny
to this movement, it is impossible to say what tremendous
consequences might have resulted. But Charlemagne had
been dead some time. Pope Gregory VII. had just died,
and Charles the Fifth was not yet born. More than forty-
five thousand men, ignorant and fanatical, led by Peter the
Hermit, merely stained their route with blood and covered
it with their dead bodies. They did not even reach Palestine.
Many other Crusaders, who followed a German preacher
named Gotescak, were massacred in Hungary. Godfrey

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de Bouillon had a more fortunate experience, since he suc-
ceeded in taking possession of Jerusalem and founding there
a transient kingdom. But this conquest was still a thing
of small moment in comparison to the means which he
employed. It needed only forty thousand men at Alexan-
dria to subjugate Asia, and when Mohammed began his
career, he had but three hundred men under his command.
In general, the Crusaders obtained but poor military
success, and it was always in connection with the particular
destiny of the one who obtained it. The taking of Jerusalem
was the most important of these successes, and no doubt
Godfrey de Bouillon was the most illustrious of the Crusader
heroes, since he attained in some way the great aim of the
Crusades; but if Godfrey had been a man of genius, he
would have felt that it was not to make him King of Jeru-
salem that all Christendom had been stirred. It was a
miserable idea and well worthy of its insignificant glory and
duration to wish to confine there such a violent movement.
He should have considered all the greatness and magnificence
of this success, and should have known how to make the
Will itself proud of its own triumph. He should have de-
clared Jerusalem the capital of the Christian world, a holy
and sacred city; he should have installed the Pope there,
vested with a universal authority; and, in following the
course of events which could not fail to arise, and which
indeed did arise, he should have taken possession of Con-
stantinople and have destroyed the Greek schism there,
making of it an imperial city, as it was under Constantine.
Nothing of this sort was done. Thus, for the same reason
that the prophetic Empire of Charlemagne collapsed, for
want of a strong will which might sustain it, so the volitive
movement of the Crusades became extinguished, since it
lacked a sufficiently strong destiny which might centralize
it. In less than two centuries, the Christians, having been
driven from all their possessions in Asia, had preserved none
of their conquests there. Nevertheless, the volitive action

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 Order of the Templars
of six million men could not be entirely lost. These distant
expeditions, although without apparent results, had, how-
ever, salutary effects upon the form of the social state and
upon its customs. The Crusaders, marching towards the
Holy Land, saw flourishing countries and magnificent cities;
they found in Asia a luxury of which they had no idea. The
utility of sciences and of arts struck them, their prejudices
were weakened, their mental horizon was expanded, new ideas
sprang up in their minds; they felt the difference between
them and other peoples. Many religions and warlike asso-
ciations which were formed, and especially the order of
the Templars, acquired theosophical knowledge which they
brought into Europe. It was a fusion of learning. Those
who came from the Orient mingled with those from Spain
and were mutually beneficial.
I shall return further on to the greater part of these
things which demand a more profound examination.
But this violent movement which had just taken place
alarmed Asia. This terrible European Will, always ready
to rise in rebellion, had need to be restrained. The enthu-
siasm was contagious and had become so great that the widow
of a king of Hungary took up the cross and placed herself
at the head of a band of women; several thousands of chil-
dren passed into Palestine, led by fanatical pedagogues. A
contrary movement broke out.
The chief of a Tartar horde, named Temugin, believed
himself called by Destiny to make the conquest of the world. 1
He assembled the principal khans of the Tartars in a sort of
Diet called Cour-Ilte, revealed to them his mission, and
persuaded them to follow him. A great number of these
khans having consented, he took the name of Genghis Khan,
the great king, and marched to fulfil his destiny. His
successes surpassed even his hopes. In less than twenty
years he had already conquered more than eight hundred
leagues from East to West and more than a thousand from
In uo6.

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:zBo Hermeneutic Interpretation
South to North. His successors extended his conquests
still more, and pushed them from the eastern frontiers of
China to the very centre of Europe, Hungary, and Bohemia.
The Christians, driven back on every side, caused the reli-
gious conflagration which they had kindled to consume
themselves. No longer being able to undertake Crusades
against those whom they had named Infidels, they attacked
and mutilated each other. They took up the cross against
those to whom they had given the name of Heretics, without
concerning themselves what heresy really was. It is well
known how the ambitious fanatic, Simon de Montfort, at
the head of more than five hw1dred thousand soldiers of the
Cross, under pretext of subduing the Albigenses, ravaged
the south of France, which was then the centre of letters
and arts, and stifled in their cradle the Oscitanic muses.
The storm which had shaken Asia during the reign of
Genghis and his descendants had hardly calmed doV'.-n,
when the Christian princes tried to renew their religious
and political expeditions against the Mussulmans; but the
volitive movement had ceased. These princes, overcome
by their own destinies, were everywhere repulsed, and, to
make matters worse, a cruel malady attacked their army.
Saint Louis, one of the best kings of France, unfortunately
drawn on by the infatuation of his century, was seized in
Africa with a deadly miasma, and died as pious as he was
courageous. 2
These new aggressions in Europe called forth new reac-
tions on the part of Asia. The Ottoman Empire, founded

More than sixty thousand persons were killed at the siege of the city of
Beziers. Before mounting to the assault, the Crusaders, upon their entrance
into the city, asked of the legates how to distinguish Catholics from Heretics.
"Kill them all." replied Izarn, "God will recognize thoee who belong to Him."
The consequence of this abominable Crusade, which shattered the hope of
France and retarded for several centuries its destiny, was the establishment
of the Tribunal of the Inquisition, the terror of humanity and the shame of
tl-e Christian cult.
His death occurred in Tunis, August 25, 1270.

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 Ottoman Empire Menaces Europe 281

in Bithynia at the close of the thirteenth century, had grown

in silence, and had acquired formidable strength. Suddenly
it appears upon the scene of the world and enters upon a
career of conquests. In a moment it invades all Syria, and
soon it menaces Europe. The Christians, alarmed, pro-
claim in vain a new Crusade. The time for it had passed.
Amurath crosses the strait and takes possession of Adria-
nople. His son, Bajazet, gains the famous battle of Nico-
polis against Sigismund, King of Hungary, in which perishes
the flower of the French nobility commanded by Count de
Nevers. Under the successors of these princes, the Greek
Empire is parcelled out, restricted more and more, and re-
duced to the sole city of Constantinople, which, towards the
middle of the fifteenth century, comes at last into the pos-
session of Mohammed II. The taking of this city put an
end to the Empire of the East, and delivered to the Turks
the most beautiful and one of the strongest positions in
Europe. Here, the most formidable Islamism and the most
vigorous Destiny established its seat to watch over this
indomitable country and to restrain the impetuosity of its
movements. The keys of Asia and the new Gordian Knot
are in Constantinople, and this makes her the all-powerful
mistress. There is no universal monarchy outside the en-
closure of its walls. It is there that Memphis and Mecca,
Rome and Jerusalem have united the force of their destin-
ies. The conquerors, who have pretended to a universal
empire and who have not known what I here disclose,
properly speaking, have not known the history of the
world; they have entirely ignored the progress of the three
great Powers which rule the Universe and have attributed
to hazard or to their star that which did not pertain to
them.
As soon as this formidable point of support was estab-
lished, Spain was abandoned. Destiny, to which it was
no longer necessary, withdrew, and King Ferdinand was
able to cover himself with an immortal glory in gaining

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an easy victory over the Moors. The Saracens, forced to
recross the seas, spread over Africa, and the Jews, banished
a short time after, took away a great part of the population
and wealth of this kingdom.

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 CHAPTER XII

RECAPITULATION

MOREtweenthanthe commencement
two thousand years have passed
of this book and its end.
be-

This long space of time has offered us hardly more than the
history of the struggle between the Will and Destiny, Liberty,
and Necessity. We have seen Europe and Asia struggling
with all their might, triumphing alternately. In the midst
of these bloody contests, Providence, always impartial,
always ready to succour the weakest side, has constantly
prevented the entire ruin of one or the other power and, at
the moment of its greatest danger, has given to it tutelary
protection. The reader will no doubt have observed this
admirable action. He will indeed have seen that the mission
of Kong-tzee, of Zoroaster, of Pythagoras had, for aim, the
preserving of intellectual lights in the midst of the material
gloom which had been brought about by the universal de-
generation of the cults; he will indeed have judged that if
Odin was destined to overthrow the Roman colossus which
threatened to annihilate Asia, Jesus, on the other hand, had
to arrest the impetuosity of his movements and prevent the
entire dissolution of the social state of Europe; dissolution
inevitable without Him. In examining the situation of the
world at the time when Jesus appeared in Judea, the reader
must have seen that it was necessary to prepare the minds
for the great change which was about to be effected, and
283

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284 Hermeneutic Interpretation
that Apollonius of Tyana was completely fitted to fulfil
this purpose. But if Europe was to be saved, Asia must not
perish, and her downfall was assured if Europe, freed from
her lethargy, should be furiously aroused and full of religious
enthusiasm should precipitate herself upon her, as it hap-
pened at the time of the Crusades. Providence, which
foresaw this movement, as it had foreseen all others, anti-
cipated it by the mission of Mohammed. This powerful
theocrat, supposing that he had not been strong enough,
was sustained by Sotoctais and the last of the Buddhas;
by Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, who were their heirs.
Providence, in submitting to the laws of Liberty and
Necessity, which the Will and Destiny develop, has not
pretended that either one of these two powers should ever
remain absolute master of the other. This is why their
greatest efforts are in vain when they aim at absolutism.
Always after their most decided triumphs some unexpected
obstacle is found which paralyses them. This obstacle is
the work of Providence.
The struggle which unfortunately has begun between
Liberty and Necessity has lasted a long time. It will last
until these two powers agree to recobrnize Providence and
bend to its august authority and permit it to unite them.
Then, the trouble, which has existed for nearly five thousand
years, will give place to a calm, and the Social State will
assume a more regular form and one more favourable to
prosperity and the welfare of Mankind.

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 FIFTH BOOK

Having come to the most important point of modem

history, I shall pause a moment, in order to recall to
mind the principal events which have been presented, adding
some new reflections following contemporaneous events and
attaining at last the aim which I proposed at the commence-
ment of this work: that of acquiring less confused ideas
concerning the Social State of Man than those which have
been given us up to this time.

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\

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 CHAPTER I

DIGRESSION UPON THE KINGDOM OF MAN-ITS INTIMATE NA

TURE, ITS COMPOSITION, THE SOLIDARITY OF ITS MEM
BERS, AND THE MEANS OF ELABORATION CONTAINED
WITWN IT

I FLATTER myself that a reader, even moderately atten-

tive, if he does not accept all my ideas, will under-
stand them at least, and will allow me to reason regarding
them. He must know now that I do not consider man as
an individual, but as an universal species, which I have
called the Kingdom of Man. This kingdom always presents
itself to me as a unique being, delighting in an intelligible
existence, which becomes sentient by individualization.
When philosophers have said that nature makes only indi-
viduals, they have said the truth when they apply this axiom
to physical nature; but they have uttered an absurdity
when they extend it to intellectual nature; this superior
nature, on the contrary, creates only the kingdom modified
by inferior nature first into species, afterwards into races,
and finally into individuals. In the Kingdom of Man, the
species is the race distinguished by colour, physiognomical
forms, and the natal place; races are the nations or peoples
diversified by language, cult, laws, and customs; individuals
are men particularized by their respective position in these
nations or races and with their own faculties and their indi-
vidual will. All men who compose a people, compose a
287

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288 Hermeneutic Interpretation
rational being of which they are the sentient members; this
rational being, called Body Politic, People, or Nation, pos-
sesses a double existence, moral and physical, and can be
considered, as well as individual man, under the triple rela-
tion of body, soul, or mind, as a being corporal and instinc-
tive, animistic and impassioned, spiritual and intelligent.
This double existence is not always in harmonious propor-
tions; for often the one is strong when the other is weak,
one living when the other is dead. The same inequality
which exists among men exists also among peoples; with some
the passions are more developed than with others; there are
the purely instinctive as well as the purely intellectual.
Men in nations and nations in races are as different
colours spread over the painter's palette. The Kingdom of
Man places them at first according to their most glaring
tints, to mix them afterwards into softened tints with which
he will compose his painting. This kingdom, as I have
said, is one of the three great powers which rule the universe;
it constitutes in particular what I have called the Will of
Man; but this Will is not simple, as I have just made clear;
it acts with three modifications, without which it could not
manifest itself; these modifications, which are particular
in the individual man, are universal in the universal man,
that is, in the Kingdom of Man. The proper place of the
Will in this kingdom is the universal soul. It is by the
universal Instinct of Man that it is bound to Destiny, and
by its universal Intelligence that it communicates with
Providence; Providence is for the individual man only this
universal Intelligence, and Destiny only this universal
Instinct; therefore the Kingdom of Man contains in itself
all the Universe. There is absolutely outside of it only the
divine Law which constitutes it and the primal Cause
whence this Law emanates. This primal Cause is called
GOD, and this divine Law bears the name of Nature. GOD
is ONE; but as Nature seems at first to offer a second prin-
ciple different from God and that itself contains a triple

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 Liberty, Essence of the Will 289

movement-whence appear to result three different natures,

the providential, the volitive, and the prophetic-it follows
that the individual man can grasp nothing which is not
double in its principles or triple in its faculties. When by a
great effort of his intelligence he arrives at the true idea of
GOD, then he attains the famous quaternary of Pythagoras,
beyond which there is nothing.
I have said just now that the Kingdom of Man, the result
of this divine Law called Nature, constituted one of the three
great powers by which the Universe is ruled-the Will-and
this must be conceived thus, although it contains also the
two others, which are Providence and Destiny; because it
is the Will which causes it to be what it is and which inclin-
ing it towards Providence or towards Destiny leads it to
one of the two ends of nature, which are unity or divisibility,
spiritualization or materialization.
The essence of the Will is liberty. Necessity exists
equally in Destiny as in Providence; but this Necessity,
whose form appears the same, differs singularly in substance.
Providential Necessity acts by assent; prophetic Necessity,
by sensation. The sentiment which depends upon the Will
adheres freely to one or the other of these two necessities,
or repulses them alike in order to remain in its centre. The
Will can remain in its animjstic centre as long as it is not
divided.
What happens to Universal Man, to the Kingdom of Man,
happens also to individual man. The Will which moves
this kingdom, free in its essence, remains equally free in
the least of human individuals that physical nature mani-
fests. Note this with care. These individuals, although
free, are not isolated; they are part of a Whole upon which
they act, and which reacts upon them. This continual
action and reaction, which renders them dependent one
upon the other, forms a sort of bond which is called solidar-
ity. Individuals are, then, jointly answerable in peoples;
peoples in nations; nations in races; races in the Kingdom
19

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of Man. Universal solidarity unites, then, the whole to the
least of its parts, and the least of its parts to its whole.
Nothing can be destroyed, but everything can be elaborated.
It is by the elaboration of the individual that that of the
masses is effected and by that of the masses that that of
the whole is operated.
Now, there exist two great means of elaboration which,
although employed under diverse forms and designated by
different names, issue none the less from a same cause in
order to arrive at a same result. These two means are
unity and divisibility, attraction and repulsion, formation
and dissolution, life and death. In the political sphere I
shall consider only these two means, under the names of
formation and dissolution. Life and death act in individuals;
attraction and repulsion in elements; unity or divisibility
in principles. It is by means of formation that the Kingdom
of Man tends to unite individuals which compose it from
the most absolute particularization, that is to say, from
that state of individual isolation whence man, recognizing
only himself, has not even the idea of conjugal ties-the
first of all to social universalization, where the same cult,
the same laws, the same tongue, unite all men. It is by
means of dissolution that the contrary movement takes
place and that the Kingdom of Man, after having gathered
the fruits of social universalization, falls back into absolute
particularization, in repassing through all political phases
from the Universal Empire to the narrowest individualiza-
tion of savage man.
We have seen this double movement act and develop
in one of the principal races of the kingdom, the Borean
Race to which we belong, and we have been able to follow
it in its principal phases of formation and dissolution. Be-
ginning with the first elements of the social state we have
been raised to the Universal Empire, but without attaining,
however, to the perfection of this Empire, as I have observed;
this fact would make us conjecture that it was for us only a

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 Formation and Dissolution 291

first elaboration followed by a second. Indeed, the move-

ment of dissolution has not brought us to the lowest step of
the social ladder as might have happened, but only to one
of the middle steps where civilization, although interrupted,
is not destroyed. We owe this favour to Providence, which
wished that the destructive cult, given by Odin to the Gothic
nations, should be redeemed by the conservative cult insti-
tuted by Jesus. I have indicated forcibly enough the causes
and the consequences of these two cults. Let us retrace
our steps a moment in order to continue our historical
exploration.

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 CHAPTER II

UTILITY OF FEUDALISM AND OF CHRISTIANITY-MODIFICATION

OF THESE TWO REGIMES BY EACH OTHER-ciDVALRY
AND ITS CONSEQUENCES-REFODIATION OF THE SOCIAL
STATE IN EUROPE

ITtowasseenothesedoubtsavage
a spectacle as wonderful as unexpected
peoples, for whom ravage and de-
struction were a necessity, armed with fire and sword, carry-
ing death and incendiarism everywhere, stopping suddenly
in the midst of their victories and receiving from the very
ones whose sciences and arts they held in horror a religion
which chained their furor and thwarted all their inclina-
tions. It is necessary, in order to judge the astonishing
contrast of their character with their position, to glance
through the terrible annals from the middle of the fifth
century to the commencement of the eleventh. I do not
believe that anything more remarkable has been shown on
earth. One sees on all sides a decided tendency towards
absolute dissolution and the incredible efforts to precipi-
tate themselves there always arrested by the impossibility
of attainment. One of the most extraordinary men who
appeared at this time in Europe was Charlemagne; he did
not in any way realize the Universal Empire to which he
aspired, for the reasons which I have given; but he rendered
a notable service to the social state by tightening the knot
which prevented dissolution. Writers, whose intentions
292

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 Feudalism and Christianity 293

were sincere but who possessed little learning beyond ex-

terior forms of things, have greatly blamed this prince for his
expedition against the Saxons. They have accused him
of fanaticism because he forced these peoples to embrace
the Christian cult; but they have not reflected that it was
the only means of arresting their destructive passion, which
if he had not done it, Europe, exposed some years later to
the invasions of the Scandinavians called Normans, would
have been unable to resist them and would have inevitably
perished, if the Saxons had united their efforts to those of
these barbarians.
Two extremely strong institutions, one political, the
other religious, saved European civilization then from abso-
lute dissolution; these were the feudal system and Christian-
ity. Some systematic philosophers have ranted much
against these two institutions, and this was assuredly very
easy if one considers them isolated and outside the time
where they were applied. Wild bulls and untamed horses
do not greatly love the yoke which makes them captive nor
the bit which hurts them; but man who understands the
utility of these two things applies them when this is neces-
sary, regardless of their feelings; Providence does likewise
regarding man when he abuses his liberty and turns against
himself strength which has been given him for other use.
But, at last, these two terrible institutions, equally
rigid, equally severe, feudalism and Christianity, impercept-
ibly yielded as customs became gentler and as passions less
destructive, and ceased to push the social state towards its
utter dissolution. This relaxation began to manifest itself
in the feudal regime, upon which the spirit of Christianity
acted strongly at the time of the Crusades. This regime
towards the close of the eleventh century attained its highest
degree of greatness; it could only decline in proportion as
its utility diminished and as its practices repulsed by customs,
becoming more and more intolerable, injured equally mas-
ters and subjects. The kings, justly irritated at the haughti-

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294 Hermeneutic Interpretation
ness of their barons, and the barons themselves weary of
their authority, demanded a change. The latter grasped
with avidity the hope which was held out to them, and the
greater part sold for almost nothing their feudal domains
in order to seek conditions more analogous to their tastes.
The sovereigns, enriched by these partial acquisitions,
progressively augmented their power, and made themselves
agreeable to a great number of communes to which they
gave political liberty, and found in commerce considerable
resources to strengthen their authority. Having become
more and more respectable, according as they became more
powerful, they stopped quarrels and private hostilities,
which up to that time had banished peace from their states.
In order to render justice in their name, they founded regular
tribunals from which judiciary combats, lists of appeals,
and judgments of God were by degrees removed.
The judiciary oombats in use among the Gothic nations dated back to
great antiquity. They had been in use among the primitive Celts, as well as
the other trials called judgments of God. There are found among all the
nations of the globe traces of this Celtic jurisprudence, which authorized the
accused to prove their innocence by submitting to certain tests called Ordeals,
such as grasping a mass of red-hot metal, plunging the ann into boiling water
or oil without burning oneseH, swallowing a poisoned beverage without expe-
riencing any fatal symptoms, etc. These extraordinary practices, having
spread over the earth, give a new proof of what I stated regarding the dominion
which the Celts enjoyed in earlier times, due to the conquests of Rama and
the establishment of his Universal Empire. The Gothic nations, in renewing
these practices, added to them the touch of barbarism which was characteristic
of them. After their conquests, and when the feudal government was solidly
established, the grand vassals, being assured of the hereditary property of
their lands and of their dignity, still claimed the power of administering justice,
the right to coin money, and the privilege of waging war in their own name on
their particular enemies; all these privileges passed imperceptibly from the
most powerful princes to the least barons; so that each country of Europe,
given over to continual ravages, became an arena of a thousand petty sovereigns
who destroyed each other. Feudal strongholds were everywhere; all was
divided; everyone was at natural enmity. The king, adorned with an empty
title, remained without authority; the people, a plaything of passions, rivalries,
hatreds of masters, fell into most miserable brutishness. There was not a
barony which was not the prey of some internal war kindled by ambition
or a spirit of vengeance. The kings had tried in vain to oppose this blood-

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 Order of Knighthood 295
The feudal government having, however, been attacked
by Christianity, and having been considerably ameliorated
in the space of less than a century, reacted in its turn upon
this religion, and constrained it to modify considerably the
rigidity of its precepts and the obscurity of its teaching.
This reaction which had birth in the heart of the Crusades,
and issued only in consequence of the principles admitted
by the two institutions-the feudal and religious-depended
entirely upon the foundation of the order of Knighthood;
a foundation which many writers have treated in a bizarre
fashion through not having examined its aim, and not having
been instructed in this great political truth: that no radical
institution either in cult or in form of government ever
modifies or changes itself, except by interior means furnished
by itself-exterior means which one employs sometimes
through ignorance or through necessity are always dangerous
and almost never arrive at the desired end.
The order of Knighthood, founded towards the commence-
ment of the twelfth century, was the result of the peculiar
circumstances in which European society was found. The
same spirit which had inspired so many of the gentry to

thirsty custom. Charlemagne, alone, had had sufficient force to stop these
disorders; but his feeble successors, incapable of maintaining his institutions,
had let the devastating torrent take its course. The evil finally became so
much worse and the peril became so urgent that Providence was obliged to
make its voice heard. About the year 1032 A.D., a bishop of the province of
Aquitania announced that an angel had appeared to him, ordering him to
proclaim to all men, that they should cease their private hostilities and be
reconciled; such being the will of God. This announcement had its effect.
It resulted in the seven years' truce. It was resolved that no one should
attack or trouble his adversary during the time set apart to celebrate the great
festivals of the Church, from the evening of Thursday of each week until the
Monday of the following week. This regulation which was at first only a
private convention of a kingdom became a general law throughout all Christen-
dom. It was confirmed by the Pope and ratified by several councils. It was
called the Peoee of God. This peace dictated by heaven would still have been
insufficient to restrain the spirit of violence which agitated these unfortunate
centuries, if the event of the Crusades, giving a new direction to the ideas,
had not furnished to the kings the necessary means of making them observed.

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296 Hermeneutic Interpretation
take arms for the defence of the oppressed pilgrims in Pales-
tine excited others to declare themselves the protectors of
the weak and the avengers of oppressed innocence in Europe.
Humanity, love, justice, honour were the distinctive quali-
ties of knights; qualities which religion had to recognize
and sanction. It recognized and sanctioned them perhaps
without foreseeing all the consequences; but these inevitable
consequences becoming developed had roots in its very
midst, and drawing from there an enthusiasm which, exalt-
ing them more and more, made them bear fruit which it
was obliged to let ripen.
Humanity at first mitigated slavery, and, notwithstand-
ing the protestations of interest and of fear, aimed to abolish
it and did abolish it. Love polished customs, carrying
with it graces long since unknown, and caused a number of
pleasing virtues to spring up which gave birth to fine arts.
Justice worked upon characters, moderated the passions,
and succeeded in repressing to a certain point their fire.
Honour illuminated valour and gave to glory its real reward.
War was waged with less ferocity; violence and oppression
djmjnjshed. Respect for truth, devotion to his duties,
exactness in keeping his word, formed the character of a
gentleman. A man of honour was a new man, a man pecu-
liar to this epoch of the social state, a man whose model one
would have searched for in vain either among the Greeks or
among the Romans or among any other nation on earth.
This creation was necessary, was even indispensable.
The feudal government, excellent in arresting the dissolu-
tion of society, was worthless in following the developments
in a new formation; its abuses would then have been mani-
fested with too much impunity and one would have seen
too often useful men, weak and unarmed, exposed to the
insolence of turbulent armed men. The Christian religion,
admirable for arresting the impetuosity of the ferocious
passions of ignorant and barbarous peoples whom it had
to muzzle, could not preserve any longer its austerity in the

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 Scholastic Theology 297
midst of the new nations which were formed under the influ-
ence of chivalry and literature. It had to forget that it
had made gallantry a crime, and that the fine arts, and even
the human sciences, had been represented by its first fol-
lowers as pernicious inventions, suggestions of the infernal
genius, snares set for men in order to lead them from the
paths of sanctity. The knights wished for love, they wished
for honour, these must be granted them; and they wished
to transform into virtues that which but lately had been
considered weakness and even vice. The poets desired illu-
sions, they desired fables; they sought charms of eloquence
outside the Gospels and the Vulgate; it was necessary to
permit them to read Ovid and Vergil, which had been
anathematized, and to allow them to renew the remembrance
of a hostile mythology which was regarded as a tissue of
impieties.
Thus things reacted. The love of knights excited the
poetic fancy of troubadours; the fancy of troubadours
inflamed the imagination of artists; the imagination of
artists developed the philosophical mind of scholars. Glory
being shown elsewhere than upon the crest of helmets and
each being able to grasp it from the lyre of the poet, the
palette of thepainter, the desk of the writer, they threw them-
selves into the career which honour, justice, and humanity
had opened to all. This veritable equality, whose aurora
was seen shining, filled the minds with an unheard-of enthu-
siasm before which the severity of the cult was obliged to
yield. Honour required that all work should receive its
reward, that all talent should have its recompense, that all
distinguished men should rise to their place; it was necessary
to yield to honour.
The movement given to exploratory minds carried them
at first towards the metaphysical. Scholastic theology
alone occupied them for a long while and enveloped them
as in a network of subtle distinctions. The first men who
called themselves philosophers in these centuries, scarcely

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298 Hermeneutic Interpretation
lightened by a faint dawn, exhausted the force of their genius
in researches or in speculations as difficult as trifling; but,
at last, some were found fortunate enough or bold enough
to disentangle, in the obscurity of the labyrinth where they
were engaged, the thread which could aid them to escape;
they seized it, and encountered Aristotle; Aristotle con-
ducted them to Plato. Then a new light struck them. And
when their dazzled eyes were sufficiently strengthened to
gaze upon the torch which they held in their hands, they
directed the light upon the objects which surrounded them;
and they were greatly surprised to find them very different
from what they had imagined them to be. Some, too eager
to speak, were punished for their intemperate loquacity;
others, having become wise by these examples, kept silent
and awaited a more propitious time to express their opinions,
or, indeed, retracted them after having uttered them. 1
Meanwhile, the universities and colleges opened on all
sides; everyone was eager to enter upon a new career, which
rivalled that of the army, and, like it, led to glory and dis-
tinction. Ordinarily the foundation of the first university
has been attributed to Charlemagne; but this idea seems
most unlikely when we recall the terrible troubles which
followed his reign. Public instruction scarcely received
genuine encouragement until the pontificate of Gregory VII. a

Among these last is Berenger who was the first to deny the real Presence
and to see only the Impanation in the Eucharist, as Luther did three centuries
later.
Ignorance was still so profound in the ninth century that the art of writ-
ing had become extremely rare. By the favour of the clergy a robber who
knew how to read was not hanged. The ecclesiastics were scarcely more
learned on this point than the most simple laymen. We see by the acts of
the Councils that many of them appointed to dignities could not sign their
names. Our word signature and our verb to sign are a proof of this state of
barbarism; they used a sort of sign which everyone adopted in place of his
name. It was ordinarily the sign of the cross. Alfred the Great complained
that in his time there was not a single priest in his kingdom who understood
the liturgy.
To this ignorance of the most simple elements of letters was added that

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 Pandects of Justinian
This sovereign pontiff, endowed with audacity and an
extraordinary force, was alone capable of conceiving a
grand idea and executing it. Public instruction, however,
took a regular and certain form only towards the beginning
of the thirteenth century, when the degrees of the University
of Paris were definitely fixed. 1 It was also the period when
science and jurisprudence increased greatly. It was
scarcely less than a century since a copy of the Pandects of
Justinian had been found in Italy. Such a work must have
struck the minds with admiration. It was studied, com-
mented upon, and, a few years after its discovery, through-
out the principal states of Europe, professors of civil rights
were appointed to give public lessons. Gentlemen trained
to arms generally abandoned this study to men whose
ancestors fortune had favoured either in agriculture, the
fine arts, or commerce, and left thus a new course open for
their emulation. This condescension soon gave them for-
midable rivals; for it was quite obvious that men who held
in their hands the life and honour of others should enjoy
soon a great consideration and acquire a great fortune. This
was what happened. Men of the robe and men of the sword,
gentlemen and judges, knights and artists were equally
esteemed and, as the judicious Robertson has very well
observed, the arts and virtues of peace began to be put in
their place and receive the recompenses which were their
due.

of all the arts. They no longer knew any comforts of life. The luxury of the
Romans had disappeared to make place for grossest necessities. Scarcely
any feeble traces of past events were preserved in the monasteries. The
mass of the nation knew nothing beyond the actual moment. The human
mind languished without culture, without emulation, without memories,
without hope.
About 1230 A.D. At this time the fact that ten thousand persons had
voice in deciding a question agitated in the University of Paris presupposes
a very large number of scholars, since only graduates had a right to vote.
In 1262, there were ten thousand scholars at the University of Bologna and
some time after thirty thousand at Oxford.

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300 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Such were the first efforts that the Will of Man made to
throw off the yoke of Destiny which had overwhelmed him
and which would have annihilated him, if Providence had
not opposed it. These efforts were good; if they had been
managed with care, they would have been able to lead to
noble results; but exaggeration, so ready to mingle with
animistic passions, did not delay to push them beyond
limits that they should have kept.

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 CHAPTER III

mSTORICAL AND POLITICAL VIEW OF THE PRINOPAL NATIONS

OF EUROPE-SPAIN

Tmisery,
HUS after several centuries of profound ignorance and
European civilization, arrested at the edge of the
abyss by two powerful institutions,-those of feudal govern-
ment and of the Christian cult,-was awakened from its
lethargy and commenced its ascending movement. It had
from the eleventh to the fifteenth century taken such rapid
steps and had displayed such formidable strength that Asia,
alarmed, had been obliged to take precautions against her:
I refer to what was effected by the invasion of Spain, and
later by the taking and occupation of Constantinople.
It was a question of seeing which side the Will of Man
would take in this state of things and whether it would at
last recognize the power of Providence or that of Destiny.
Already, thanks to the weakness of the feudal system, many
great kingdoms were formed whose peoples, rivals in power
as in glory, were eager to assume control. All had more or
less titles; all were more or less urged on by their position.
Spain was then in the first rank; after her came France and
England, Italy and Germany. Neither Poland nor the
powers of the North, Sweden and Denmark, were in any
condition to rank with them and Russia was unknown.
Let us glance rapidly at each of these states and see what
their hopes could be.
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Spain, invaded by the Goths, submitted to the lot com-
mon to all the parts of the Roman Empire and fell beneath
the iron arms of these barbarians, who spared them no more
than all the rest; happily their yoke did not weigh upon them
such a long time. The Saracens of Mrica, invited by Count
Julian, made the conquest at the commencement of the
eighth century and brought there with the sciences and arts
of the Arabs much useful knowledge. This kingdom then
enjoyed a more fortunate destiny than the other states;
and when it succeeded in recovering its independence, it
could, with just reason, place itself at the head of European
civilization; but this situation, favourable on the one side,
drew from the other some grave disadvantages. The change
was not made abruptly; the conquests over the Moors had
taken place, on the contrary, in different times and under
different chiefs. At first, King Pelagius, quartered in the
mountains of Asturias, had assembled about him some coura-
geous Christians who, refusing to submit to the Mussulmans,
had formed under his command a small state which was
maintained chiefly by the roughness and poverty of the coun-
try in which it was hidden. This state, profiting by favour-
able conditions, grew imperceptibly. The quarrels which
had occurred among the Moors had encouraged several
cities to throw off their yoke; so that at the end of the
eleventh century, at the time when the ascending movement
recommenced in Europe, there were in Spain twenty kings,
as many Christians as M ussulmans, independent of each
other, not counting a considerable number of knights,
who also considered themselves sovereigns, riding on horse-
back, fully equipped and attended by their squires, offering
their services to any one who was disposed to give them the
best pay.'
Knighthood, founded at this time, and received throughout all the Chris-
tian world, flourished chiefly in Spain. It was there especially that the knights-
errant, aptly called, appeared. The most celebrated among them was
Rodrigo, surnamed the Cid,~r rather the Sid, that is to say, Lord,-even

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 Restriction of Royal Power 303

As it had not been possible to conquer the Saracens

without the co-operation of the Spanish people, who had
often driven these strangers to surrender to Christian princes,
it was found that the feudal system had taken on a peculiar
character in Spain, participating in some way with democ-
racy. Everywhere the royal prerogative was restrained to
the narrowest limits; everywhere the nobles affected great
haughtiness and the citizens of the towns great independence;
it was in Spain that one saw for the first time people sanc-
tioning insurrection as a legitimate right and even as a duty,
revoking their oath of obedience, deposing their kings, and
even prosecuting them. This terrible abuse of popular
power by the common people was called the privilege of the
Union, and was a part of the legal customs of the kingdom
of Aragon. In this kingdom, the kings, long since elective,
enjoyed but an empty title: the real exercise of sovereignty
devolved upon the Cortes, a sort of parliamentary assem-
blage without whose permission the monarch could neither
impose taxes, declare war, make peace, nor coin money.
But, as if such barriers had not been sufficient to stop his
usurpations, it was deemed quite fitting to establish a sort
of guardian over him, whose function had some resemblance
to that of the Ephors or the Tribunes of the people; he was
an Interpreter of laws, a Grand Judiciary, called Justiza,
authorized to exact accounts from all the magistrates and
from the king himself, all of whose acts he controlled. r
It was difficult to limit any further the royal power, and
it would have been just as well not to have had any kings;
by the Saracens, who were astounded at his courage. His wealth was con-
siderable. Few kings were as powerful and more respected than he. His
exploits and his marriage with Ximene, whose father he had killed, have fur-
nished the subject for a multitude of romances which are still told in Spain.
It was through this Justisa that the barons of Aragon said to their kings
the very day of their coronation these words so often cited: "We who are as
important as you and who together are more powerful than you; we promise
to obey your government, if you maintain our rights and privileges; and if
not, no."

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for how could one expect a prince with any force of character
to submit to such restrictions? He who supported them was
incapable of reigning and the state suffered from his inca-
pacity; he who felt the virtues of a monarch sought to break
them and the state was a prey to revolutions. 1 It was in
Spain chiefly that the Will of Man had exaggerated its efforts;
it would have even aimed to establish there the centre of
unlimited liberty, if Providence, in determining the mission
of Mohammed, had not furnished to Destiny arms sufficiently
strong to oppose it.
The kingdoms of Castile, Valencia, and Catalonia, al-
though adopting in their constitutions forms somewhat less
democratic than that of Aragon were hardly more favourable
to royalty; they had also the legislature of the Cortes with
all its prerogatives. The nobles who possessed the greater
part of the lands were very proud of the privilege of their
caste. The peoples, conscious of their strength, which the
continuous wars sustained against the Moors had displayed,
manifested a spirit of insubordination, impatient of all rule.
In general, Spain lacked unity, and, even after the complete
expulsion of the Moors and the reunion of all its kingdoms
by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, its different
parties, badly joined, did not form a regular whole. It is
to this want of harmony that must be attributed the slight
advantage which this nation drew from the learning it had
received from the Arabs, and the precocious knowledge,
which, far from leading to the end which it had expected,
only inspired a sterile pride which destroyed it.
Several kings of Castile and Aragon had vainly tried to
extend the royal prerogative at the expense of the privileges
of the nobles and the liberties of the communes; but Fer-
dinand alone found the means of attempting it to good
purpose when, having united the two sceptres in his hand,
he saw himself invested with a power great enough not to
This is what often happened and principally during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, under the reigns of Alphonso III. and of Peter IV.

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 Pope Alexander VI. 305
fear any competitors among his vassals and with a glory
sufficiently striking to draw the respect of his peoples. His
decisive victories over the Moors gave him both. At the
head of a victorious army, he skilfully turned his forces
against a feudal aristocracy which had annoyed him and
striking it in its most solid foundations-knighthood and
the Cortes-he restrained to such an extent the influence of
the feudal body, that, deprived of power and of considera-
tion, it finally disappeared entirely.
Thus was the Spanish aristocracy demolished; but the
monarch in avoiding one danger fell into another: he es-
poused the cause of democracy which, at first obedient, did
not fail to claim all its liberties, even that of rising in rebel-
lion on the slightest occasion and as soon as it found a prince
weak enough to fear it. Ferdinand saw it well ~d seeking a
means of evading such a difficulty had the misfortune to
attach himself to the worst of all, the religious terror. Fer-
dinand was not really pious; indeed, how could he have been
while Borgia, under the name of Alexander VI., occupied
the pontifical chair? He regarded religions only as political
institutions, to which governments could help themselves
according to their positions and their interests. Providence
was to him Destiny, and Destiny the force or the ability of
men. The crusade against the Albigenses had created the
calamitous tribunal of the Inquisition; the Spanish monarch
saw in this tribunal a sort of check which was necessary to
him, and he took it without concerning himself regarding
the strange abuse for which he was culpable. The Aragons,
at first frightened at the sight of this phantom, hastened to
arms, opposed the establishment of the inquisitors with all
their strength, and even had the chief killed; but the military
force, then all powerful in the hands of Ferdinand, had soon
repressed these rebels, who, fighting in the name of heaven,
had finally submitted. One can never struggle with ad-
vantage against consequences avowed by a principle which
one is obliged to respect. Ferdinand, after the victory,
20

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3o6 Hermeneutic Interpretation
received from Pope Alexander VI. the surname of Catholic.
He would better have deserved that of Despot. Providence,
outraged, withdrew then from Spain, and the Will of Man,
violently restrained by Destiny, tried to break forth in the
manner which I shall relate further on.

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 CHAPTER IV

FRANCE, ENGLAND, ITALY

FRANCE was, after Spain, the most flourishing of the

European states of the fifteenth century; monarchical
government had advanced towards unity across a multitude
of obstacles, several of which had been fortunately over-
come. The feudal rule, established from the beginning of
the first race, had begun to give way under the second, and
in the hands of Charlemagne had received some important
modifications, which tended to give it imperial forms; but
under the feeble successors of this prince, everything that
he tried to unite was divided, and, in the contrary move-
ment which followed, greatly surpassed its natural limits;
so that it was principally in France and in Germany, where
this reaction was most felt, that feudalism offered the small-
est divisions and inclined the most towards aristocratic
anarchy.
This was an inevitable effect of the reign of Charlemagne;
this reign, entirely prophetic, having exaggerated the power
At this unfortunate time, safety was nowhere. All was brigandage and
confusion. England differed not in this respect from France, and Germany
was still more infested with disorders. The ideas of justice and equity were
so perverted there, that, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, several
German Margraves still counted among their rights those of exacting ransom
from travellers passing through their territories, and of debasing coin. Em-
peror Frederick III. had great difficulty making them listen to reason in this
regard, and was obliged to constrain them at the Diet of Egra to take oath to
abandon these rights.

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of Destiny, without giving it any other support, either in
the Will or in Providence, had necessarily been drawn along
to its dissolution; for it seems to me that I have sufficiently
repeated that the consolidation of things is given to Pro-
vidence alone. That which comes from the Will alone is
divided by exaltation; that which comes from Destiny
alone is dissolved by corruption.
In the course of the ninth century, no more authority
existed in France; the people there were in slavery. The
feudal system, fallen into dissolution, was without force,
and the royal power, debased, was nothing more than a vain
counterfeit without consideration. The kings, stripped of
army, of domains, of even subjects, languished without
honour, until at last Hugh Capet, chief of the third race,
was called to the throne by the assent of the grandees of the
realm. This event decided the fate of France in giving to
royalty a real force, which, increasing, soon surpassed that
of the barons. The successors of Hugh, nearly all distin-
guished in their time, skilfully profited by circumstances
quietly to take possession of the States of the nation, which,
under the name of the Field of Mars (or of May), had repre-
sented the feudal body from the time of the first race. These
States finding no longer in this body either common bond,
general interest, or principle of union which they could
grasp, allowed themselves to be dominated by princes
capable of acting opportunely with the motive of interest or
of fear, and consented to surrender the legislative power to
them. The first step taken, the kings of France, Louis
the Fat and Philip the Fair, successively affirmed it,
giving liberty to the communes, opening to the deputies
entrance to these same States, which thenceforth took
the name of States-General. All the rest was dependent
upon it.
The monarchs became legislators, assuming the title
and all its functions, even to claiming the right to impose
taxes and arbitrarily raise armies. Gradually they set

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 States-General
aside the convocation of the States-General, of which they
had no further need, and they even replaced them by judges
of their court, of whom they formed a political body, called
by the name of "Parkment, " to which they attributed,
outside of the judiciary functions, those of verifying and
registering their edicts and their other legislative acts. At
this time, France was inclined towards absolute monarchy,
and, during this crisis, it was necessary that royalty should
be all or nothing; and this depended always on the genius
of the reigning prince, whose Destiny made that of his king-
dom. If this genius was powerful, France was powerful
and well governed; if, on the contrary, it was weak,
France fell into a state of weakness and confusion. This
singular situation had its advantages and its disad-
vantages. I shall shortly point out why, when ready to
ascend to the highest rank of the powers of Europe,
France did not ascend. It was neither the States-Gen-
eral, the nobility, nor the "parkments" which prevented
her, as some superficial writers have advanced; it was
the blindness of Charles the VII. and his ingratitude
towards Providence.
England, long-time rival of France, and often a fortunate
rival, had experienced the same vicissitudes. Overrun by
the fierce disciples of Odin, as all the other parts of the
Roman Empire, she had resisted even less than the con-
tinent. Successively invaded by the Angles, the Saxons,
the Danes, and the Normans, she had bent beneath their
yoke, changing masters as well as laws, language as well as
customs. At first she had been divided among a number of
petty sovereigns, almost always at war, who, by dint of
destroying themselves, were at last reduced to seven and
had formed the Saxon heptarchy, to which a king of Wes-
sex, named Egbert, had, however, put an end, when he
united the seven kingdoms into a single one, and called it
the Kingdom of England. This reunion had this in its
favour, that it produced the reign of Alfred, justly called

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the Gt-eat, an extraordinary man for his time, and a prince
worthy of commendation in all respects.
This reign was for England what that of Charlemagne
had been for France. At the death of Alfred, all was
confusion again. The Danes inundated England anew;
the Normans followed, and brought with them the scions of
the ancient Franks who usurped the crown. At this time, the
English barons profited by the weakness of many of their
kings to turn to account their ancient privileges, which the
successive conquests of the Danes and Normans had caused
to disappear, and as they could not do this without the
support of the common people, it developed in the course
of a certain period that the concessions, which they had
extorted from the monarchs, turned more to the profit of
the commons than to the advantage of the nobles. The
people, trained by this spirit of turbulence which had agi-
tated the barons, turned it against the barons themselves,
so that the feudal system yielded to the multitude and could
preserve itself only by favouring democracy, which was
embraced.
Thus, in England it was upon democracy that feudalism
supported itself; in Spain, royalty triumphed over feudalism,
by relying upon religion considered as a coercive means;
in France, royalty believed that upon itself alone it could
be established, flattering itself to restrain by the force of
arms and the illusion of the sceptre alone, the pretensions
of feudalism and the encroachments of the commons. There
was more of Will than of Destiny in England and more of
Destiny than of Will in France and in Spain; but France
Fortunate warrior and able politician, Alfred conquered exterior and
interior enemies; he gave a code of laws to his people, in which he introduced
for the first time the institution of a Jury. He favoured commerce, and caused
a considerable number of vessels to be built. It is said that he laid the foun-
dations of the University of Oxford, and that he used all his power to make
arts and sciences flourish in his states. He was himself a man of letters and
some of his writings are still preserved. Alfred died in goo A.D. after having
reigned about thirty years.

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 Louis, le Debonnaire 311

had this advantage over Spain, that, at least, it did not pro-
fane the power of Providence in taking advantage of its
name to prop up its authority, and, the bases of its govern-
ment being more true, they were consequently stronger.
H the fate of Italy differed in some respects from that
of other countries of Europe after the invasion of the bar-
barians, it was because it was more terrible, as much on
account of the great abundance of wealth which constantly
attracted them there, as on account of the keen hatred
which they felt towards the Romans. The Goths who
remained there after having ravaged it were called Lombards.
The reign of Charlemagne arrested for a while the general
disorder, and shed some rays of hope upon Italy; but this
calm did not last long. The edifice which this monarch
had raised was immense; no one after him could support
the burden. His empire, divided at first by his son Louis,
called le Debonnaire, was subdivided at the death of Lothair,
son of Louis, and soon came to an end. The crown of
Germany was forever separated from that of France and
the descendants of Charlemagne, more and more unable to
preserve them, let them both fall; the first fell to a Count
of Franconia called Conrad, and the second to a vassal called
Hugh Capel. r But, before these two events, all the energies
of the government were exhausted; unity of action had
disappeared; so that the feudal members of this great corps,
from the greatest to the least, had all become sovereigns
in their domains.
Now, among the extraordinary things which came to
pass, we must carefully observe this one: that the domains,
particularly the cities, at the time of the change of which I
have just spoken, were without either military chiefs or
barons who could, at this point, seize the authority; but
bishops or abbots, judges, municipal magistrates, see-
ing themselves masters, consolidated their power without
any one having the force to oppose them or dreaming of
I In 912, and in 987 A.D.

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doing so in this frightful chaos; so that the feudal system,
thus parcelled, comprised a considerable number of petty
theocracies and petty republics, whose unusual existence
was one of the great singularities of this gloomy time. As-
suredly, there was no true theocracy, and still less true
republicanism: all was limited to forms; the substance did
not issue from feudal anarchy.
Spain, France, and England either did not receive these
forms at all, on account of opposing circumstances, or if
they did receive them, did not keep them long; but it was
not thus in Italy and in Germany, where the absence of
harmony in the government made it felt the more. These
two countries were crammed with small ecclesiastical and
municipal sovereignties, which at first were entitled imperials
and feigned to be dependent upon the Empire, but which
finally became independent. Germany had the greatest
number of ecclesiastical sovereignties; Italy the greatest
number of municipal. This last country was surcharged
with a number of these would-be republics, which devoured
each other in turn, and which, leaving the hands of an aristo-
cratic council to fall into those of an ephemeral usurper, caused
only a change of tyranny. Factions, jealousies, plots, con-
spiracies, and deceits were everywhere; there was no fighting
because there were no armies, but assassinations took place
and the greatest victories were obtained by poison. 1
In the midst of this anarchical chaos, there were, how-
ever, some cities which were distinguished from others,
thanks to commerce which furnished them the means.
Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence were of this number; Venice
especially which had opened a profitable commerce with
Alexandria. 2 One might say that it was principally in Italy
See, in Machiavelli's history of Castracani, tyrant of Lucca and Pistoja,
what this writer says of Caesar Borgia. Such plots, fortunate or unfortunate,
are the history of all Italy.
These cities found in the Crusades an opportunity for increasing their
1Ralth and power by funUahiDg the Crusaders with means of transportation

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 Emporocracy Predominates 313

that the feudal system yielded to the mercantile spirit from

which it received the volitive movement. The government
which was here established was not republican, as injudicious
historians have described it; it was emporocratic. r Empo-
rocracy dominated this country everywhere; it produced
distinguished men, who gave to Italy the few beautiful days
that she had in the sixteenth century. This sort of govern-
ment, which passed from Italy into Flanders, became natu-
ralized a little later in Holland. It was still entitled there
republican, although it was really only municipal and emporo-
cratic. A genuine republican government can exist only
where the people assemble en masse and appoint their magis-
trates as they did in Athens and in Rome. Whenever the
government becomes representative, it turns to emporo-
cracy. Rousseau was perfectly right on this point. He saw
clearly that the popular Will, essential principle of every
republic, could not be represented. The idea of represen-
tatives is modern, as he said, or rather it is renovated from
the ancient government of the Celts, and modified according
to the feudal system of the Goths.
Before the Hollanders, the Swiss in escaping from the
yoke of Austria had had the pretension of constituting a
republic; but it was simply a municipal association which
they had constituted. Since the downfall of the Roman
Empire, there did not exist in Europe a single government 2

and by making for them a station for ammunition and food; by establishing
their independence by legal acts, which forced the Emperors to ratify their
privileges. Frederick Barbarossa tried in vain to establish imperial juris-
diction over them; he could not attain this end and signed at Constance in
1183 a treaty of peace by which he abandoned all his rights.
A new word to express a new idea. It is taken from the Greek lJI.ffOPOf,
a merchant, and Kpd-ror, force.
It is in vain that some writers have regarded the government of Venice
as a perfect aristocracy. It was rather a municipal tyranny. There was
nothing noble in this government but the title which it gave itself. All were
severe and cruel because all were timid; all were restless and partial because
all were jealous. The people, always trembling and disarmed, were fitted

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314 Hermeneutic Interpretation
which could qualify as homogeneous and as perfect in its
kind. They have all drawn along with them a mixture of
most opposed elements.
neither for attack nor for defence; thus they were the victims of the first vigor-
ous undertaking which was formed against them. The League of Cambrai
dealt it a mortal blow. Commerce, in which Venice could still place any hope,
was taken from her a short time after by the Portuguese. In considering Ven-
ice as a strict aristocracy, Florence might have been regarded as a temperate
democracy; but the real truth is that there was neither aristocracy nor demo-
cracy in all this; there was municipal usurpation, vigorous on one side and
weak on the other. The people in Florence were more fortunate bnt also
more exposed to revolutions. The Doge of Venice was an alderman, sometimes
tyrannical and sometimes tyrannized. When Florence had a chief, it was
under the name of Gonjaloniu, a mere legal alderman, somewhat as the Doge
of Genoa, a sort of mayor, despotic without violence and absolute without
severity. One of them named Cosmo de' Medici, loved by the people because
he knew how to form their taste in feigning to flatter them, gave his name to
his century in divining the opinion of the centuries following. History deals
at length with the city of Milan, only on account of the bloody wars which
its possession excited between Germany and France. There was nothing
remarkable in her form of government. Of Naples I shall speak later.

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 CHAPTER V

WHAT ROME WAS, AND WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN-RE-

SPECTIVE POSITION OF THE POPES AND EMPERORS;
THEIR DIVISIONS

IF itI have not spoken of Rome in the preceding chapter,

is because it is very difficult to fix
one's thought re-
garding her, and to know whether she should be considered
as a sacred, an imperial, or a free city. She has pretended
according to circumstances to each title, and they have been
given to her according to the parties which have ruled; but
she has not entirely merited any of them. Providence,
Destiny, and the Will of Man have appeared there alternately
and have displayed in turn considerable strength, without
ever being able either to be united or separated, recognized
or mutually subjugated. Rome has been the scene of an
eternal combat among these three powers. She has been
the theatre of numberless revolutions, and has presented,
according to the epochs, a picture of the general situation
of Europe.
It is evident that if the Christian religion has to have a
sovereign pontiff, and that, if this sovereign pontiff has been
in the essence of its cult, he necessarily has to live somewhere,
and to possess a seat inviolable and sacred; for, after all,
this first person of the sacerdotal hierarchy cannot be left
to the mercy of civil power, whatever it may be. It is
neither with his arms nor with those of his priests that a.
315

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316 Hermeneutic Interpretation
sovereign pontiff can defend himself if attacked. He must
have a place of refuge so revered that no one can enter
without his consent, unless he incur immediate anathema
and be reputed impious. It is an irrefutable maxim and
every just mind must feel it, that a sovereign pontiff must
be, in the place where he resides, all or nothing. Providence,
which he represents and whose organ he is, cannot endure
division; supposing that he really represents it and that he
possesses the right to speak, which is irresistible if he is
admitted as sovereign pontiff. Every time that a real
sovereign pontiff has existed, this pontiff has resided in a
sacred, inviolable place beyond the reach of civil power.
The moment that he has mingled with citizens and has re-
sided within the same walls as the sovereign, whatever may
have been the nature of this sovereign, he has been under
the iron hand of Destiny and has enjoyed no liberty. Then,
one could do with him whatever one wished: to name Hilde-
brand as well as Borgia; as did Frederick I., kissing the feet
of Adrian IV., leading him in triumph through Venice; or
as Philip the Fair, sending hired assassins to Boniface VIII.
in Agnone to deal him blows.
But is it the essence of the Christian cult to have a sover-
eign pontiff? It does not belong to me to decide this ques-
tion; neither do I decide it as a theologian; I solve it only as
a politician, and I say in general that royalty can no more
exist without a king than can priesthood without a sacer-
dotal priest. However, one might say that a king is not so
necessary to the government of men that one cannot do
without him; for example, in republics. I admit it. But I
reply that then it is not a monarchy, and that the peoples
who give the laws give them according to their will, make
and unmake them at their pleasure; and I add that if these
peoples have a cult, they have it as they wish it, adding
here or retrenching there, according to their caprice, and
naming for sovereign pontiff Anytus as well as Cresar. I
know that this state of affairs is expedient to certain minds.

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 Greek and Latin Churches Separate 317

but as it is equally pennissible for me to have an opinion on

this subject, mine is: that in supposing the peoples able to
give laws unto themselves, which I doubt, it is not true that
they can ever give themselves a cult; because all cult implies
an inspiration or a divine revelation of which, considered
en masse, they are absolutely incapable.
Besides, the difficulty in Europe has always been to know
if there was not only a sovereign pontiff there but also an
emperor; if this pontiff would be the Patriarch of Constan-
tinople or that of Rome; and the Emperor, that of the East
or of the West. We must not forget that after the invasion
of the barbarians and their establishment in the West, the
Empire of the East aspired to the dominion and that its
Patriarch at first claimed all the rights of supreme priest-
hood. The Greek Church treated with contempt the Latin
Church; ancient Rome was regarded at Constantinople as
annihilated and new Rome as ignorant and savage. Even
at the time of the Crusades, the Greeks saw the Franks arrive
among them with terror. Anne de Comn~ne never spoke
of these peoples but with the most profound disdain; she
was loath to tarnish with this barbarous name the majesty
and elegance of history. From the commencement a
struggle was established between the two churches; a struggle
which, always rankling on account of the two Patriarchs
who would not consent to recognize each other, ended in a
rupture and brought forth a schism for which Photius
furnished the first pretext. 1
The Patriarch of Rome remained then sole sovereign
pontiff of the Latin Church, under the name of Pope, and
enjoyed at first a brilliant existence due to the munificence
of Pepin, whom Etienne II. had crowned. Charlemagne, as

This schism, which still lasts, is based upon the claim of the Greek Church
that the Holy Spirit emanates from the Father alone, whereas the Latin
Church considers it as emanating from the Father and Son. This schism,
which began about the middle of the ninth century, was oonswnmated in
1053 by the Patriarch Cerularius.

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318 Hermeneutic Interpretation
magnanimous as generous, confirmed all the gifts of Pepin
and, to put an end to the attempts which the Lombards
constantly made to gain possession of Rome, overthrew their
kingdom and confined their last king in a monastery. Every-
thing went very well up to this point; Charlemagne, as I
have said, preferred to be obedient to the grandeur of his
character than to the illumination of his intelligence. At
his death, all that he had built collapsed. In none of his
descendants was seen any of the qualities which had made
him illustrious; instead of cherishing harmony, by mutual
consent, between altar and throne, they were divided
into factions, and this ruined them. One would have
said that the more the blood of Charlemagne receded
from its source, the more it degenerated. At last, the impe-
rial crown passed from the Franks to the Germans, and fell
almost immediately to the lot of those same Saxons whom
this monarch had so cruelly persecuted to make them em-
brace Christianity. One feels that still bruised from the
tortures which they had experienced, they had not much
love for the pontiffs, who had stirred up the Franks against
them; thus they seized with avidity the slightest pretext to
persecute them. Henry-the-Fowler and the three Othos
were important enough as princes for the times in which
they reigned; but they held too much to the cult of Odin,
making their valour fierce and their politics sanguinary.
The pontifical seat, little respected by them-and per
haps it had become unworthy of respect-was a prey to
horrors of all kinds: the memory of Pope Formosa was out-
raged by his successor and the body of this pontiff was
exhumed and thrown into the Tiber. Etienne VI., who
dared to permit this indignity, was justly punished and was
hanged in his prison. Etienne VIII., pursued by the Roman
populace, had his face so cruelly scarred that he dared not
appear in public. At this time, Rome no longer belonged
to the priesthood; two artful women held the principal
authority there; Marozia and Theodora directed by their

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 Degeneracy of Pontifical Power 319

intrigues the elections of the sovereign pontiffs; Pope John

X., whom Theodora had chosen, displeasing Marozia by
the austerity of his manners, had been strangled by order
of this lewd woman and was replaced soon after by a son
whom she had had by Pope Sergius. This son, extolled
under the name of John XI., had died miserably in prison
with his mother, and John XII., accused of adultery, had
been solemnly deposed by order of Otho I. and had been put
to death a short time after.
There was no more dignity attached to the tiara, no
respect accorded to the sacerdotal character; the holy
throne was bought, sold, and blood-stained in turn. Italy,
entirely conquered by the Germans, struggled beneath their
yoke. The subjugated Romans freed themselves as soon
as they could. Otho II., justly called the Bloody, irritated
by the opposition which he encountered in the Roman
senate, finding no other means of reducing them to obedience,
ordered the principal senators massacred; execrable means,
which dishonoured his reign, without giving him the tran-
quillity which he sought, since there was seen, a few years
after, a consul named Crescentius proclaiming the indepen-
dence of this city and attempting to recall the age of Brutus.
It is said that Otho III. having had the rebel seized, had him
hanged by the feet, notwithstanding his promise to spare his
life. Pope John XXII., suspected of having fomented the
rebellion, experienced a most cruel fate: the Emperor caused
his hands and ears to be cut off and his eyes tom out. To
palliate this crime he proclaimed that this John was an anti-
pope.
But how could one imagine that such horrors would
remain unpunished? It would be very unsophisticated to
believe that spiritual power would allow itself to be thus
degraded and that such cowardly actions would not bring
their own punishment. The German, or rather the Saxon
emperors wished then, that sovereign pontiffs of the Christ-
ian cult, called to exercise so great an influence over their

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320 Hermeneutic Interpretation
minds, should be absolutely denuded of their civil power,
that they should have no refuge, no place to lay their head;
that they should be at their discretion and that they could
be outraged with impunity and even killed if that was
agreeable to the monarchs.
But finally this was impossible. In considering them
only as bishops of Rome, had they not as many rights over
Rome as those of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves had over
those cities? Did it occur to anyone to object to the abbots
of Fulda, Saint Gall, Kempten assuming the regalia of
office? Did anyone ask these prelates for the qualifications
on which they founded their authority? Since the bishop
of Mayence was a sovereign, why should not the bishop of
Rome be one? Was it because he was pope, patriarch, or
sovereign pontiff that he should be without patrimony,
without eclat, without surety for his person or his dignity?
What folly! One would make of a spiritual chief whose
power was becoming more and more formidable a pastor of
the primitive church, a mendicant priest awaiting in humility
and abjection his sustenance of tithes and voluntary alms
from the people. Miserable contradiction which showed
well to what degree the Will of Man had let itself be abused
by the most base and obscure passions; even the shadow of
Providential power revolted his pride, irritated his desire;
it liked better to submit to the iron yoke of Destiny and
console itself with its evils, saying: it is force, it is necessity.
Force and necessity were placed accordingly above the
pontifical throne. The monarchs, who had not wished to
recognize the pastoral staff, were obliged to bow beneath
a rod of iron. A man endowed with a great character,
intrepid, audacious, inflexible as severe, was chosen pope
under the name of Gregory VII. He was formerly called
Hildebrand. His father was only a poor artisan in a small
town of Tuscany. Hardly had he seized the censer, when,
having resolved to strike a violent blow at the civil author-
ity, he declared all those excommunicated who had received

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 Hildebrand, Gregory VII. 321

from a layman the investiture of any sacerdotal office and

those who gave them, and threatened at the same time to
anathematize the Emperor of Germany, Henry IV., and
Philip the I., King of France, who were guilty of this abuse.
At these tidings the German monarch assembled a council
at Worms and deposed Gregory; but the latter was not a
John XII. or XXII., that could be intimidated, outraged, or
injured with impunity. He convoked another council more
regular than the first, since it was legitimate, and declared
Henry excommunicated and deposed. This unexpected blow
amazed Europe; the prince, stripped of all his moral force, was
overwhelmed and nonplussed by it. The principal sovereigns
of Germany, ecclesiastics as well as temporals, rose up and
took arms against him. His wife and children were seen
even breaking all bonds of nature and of duty, offering them-
selves as his accusers and joining his enemies. He was
forced to bow before the terrible power which was shown for
the first time.
Let us tum our attention for a moment to this monarch,
invincible up to this time; he appears as a suppliant before
the gate of the chAteau of Canossa where the Pope was, he
remains there three days, bareheaded, his body covered with
hair cloth, in the middle of winter, exposed to a most rigor-
ous fast to implore a pardon which he obtained at last only
with great difficulty and under the most humiliating condi-
tions. And do not think that Henry was a weak man; he
was a courageous prince, indomitable in war. In the course
of his life he had fought in person more than sixty battles,
had subjugated the Saxons, had triumphed over two formid-
able competitors, and had even fought his own children who
had risen against him. At the time of his humiliation, he
was the terror of Europe and was advancing rapidly to the
universal monarchy. This is what the greatness of Gregory
did; he stopped him by a single word, in the middle of his
career, without the need of any physical force. It was in
vain that the humbled monarch, after having recovered from
21

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the first shock which had caused his downfall, believed
himself strong enough to violate his oaths. All that he
could do with his passionate outbursts and his intrigues was
to increase the trouble which already existed, and to give
rise to two opposed factions, which, for three centuries,
agitated Italy and Germany without relaxation. The
factions of the Guelphs defended the sacerdotal authority
and that of the Ghibellines sustained the pretensions of the
emperors. In the midst of these open or secret wars which
were brought about by these two factions, the imperial
power became weakened more and more by murders, poison-
ings, crimes of all sorts with which the throne was sullied,
and vanished completely during the long interregnum which
followed the death of William of Holland. Rudolph of
Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria, was at last
chosen emperor in 1273, not because anyone believed him
capable of raising or extending the imperial power, but, on
the contrary, as Robertson has very well observed, because
his domains and his credit did not appear sufficient to excite
the jealousy of any of his rivals. Thus, the two chiefs of
this Gothic feudalism which was called an empire, the pope
and the emperor, were destroyed, as neither wished to
respect the other and as they had alternately tried to be
everything, they finished by being nothing. Notwithstand-
ing his genius, Gregory VII. did not succeed in obtaining
the universal power to which he aspired, because the very
essence of his cult opposed it. He could indeed humble the
imperial majesty, and, in bequeathing to his successors the
formidable weapon of anathema, make them the terror of
kings and the arbitrators of nations; but notwithstanding the
three crowns with which their tiara was encircled and the three
crosses which surmounted their sceptre, he could neither make
r It was impossible that reigning monarchs ~9uld adore a priest preaching
humility, comparing the slave to the king; and that bishops, his equals, should
obey orders of one who, taking only the title of servant of servants, should
recognize and consecrate this maxim: "that the first shall be last," etc.

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 Turks Protect Asia 323
the sacerdotal body wish to recognize them as infallible sover-
eigns nor the councils not claim supreme authority over them.
This lack of unity was inherent in the Christian cult. The
Church was invested from its birth with republican forms
which it had found in the Roman Empire, and this Empire,
in reconstructing itself after a fashion three or four cen-
turies after its downfall, had again added to these incoherent
forms all the abuse of Gothic feudalism.
The same difficulties which existed in the Church existed
also in the Empire and their effect, still more grave, dis-
turbed the harmony on all sides. Although the German
Emperors regarded all the princes of Europe and even the
doges of Venice and Genoa as their vassals, and although
they believed they had the right to summon them to their
tribunals and put them under the ban of the Empire, there
was not one of these princes who would submit to their
orders. Even those who had elected them, accorded them
empty honours without any shadow of authority. On
certain occasions, it is true, the greatest princes accompanied
and served them with the title of officer of their household;
the day of their coronation they served them drink on horse-
back; in their charters, they gave them the name ClBSar,
and the title Master of the World; but they left these Masters
of the World, these A ugmentateurs de l' Empire, as they were
called, without treasure and without power. Always suspi-
cious of each other, one saw, on one side, the vassals unceas-
ingly occupied with arresting the aspirations of their chief,
and, on the other, the chief unceasingly seeking to encroach
upon the privileges of his vassals. What dignity could the
whole appearance have? At Rome they wished a mendi-
cant for sovereign pontiff, always occupied with saying
amen and who could be employed as a political machine.
In Germany-for the emperor did not possess officially a
single city, a single chAteau, that I might name-they
wished a shadow of a king, one merely for parade, who
could be put aside when the parade was terminated.

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Such was the general situation of the principal cities of
Ew-ope and the point to which the development of their
individual Will had conducted them, when the Turks,
drawn into Europe by the fatality of Destiny, came and in
taking possession of Constantinople, raised a protecting
barrier for Asia and presented to the usurpation of the Will
an insurmountable obstacle.

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 CHAPTER VI

STRUGGLE IN FRANCE AGAINST ENGLAND-DANGER OF FRANCE

BEING ABANDONED BY DESTINY-MOVEMENT OF
PROVIDENCE IN ITS FAVOUR-JOAN OF ARC

E ACH of the European nations of which I have spoken,

although imbued with the same sentiment of ambition
which inclined it to dominate over the others and to seize
universal monarchy, could not conceal the fact that each
was too weak for this. It was necessary then that, by force
or by ruse, one of them should seize the other in order to
unite its means to theirs and proceed afterwards to the
conquest of the rest. The union of France and Germany,
attempted several times, had always been a failure. The
imperial dignity placed in this latter country, seemed to
give it an advantage over the other; but this advantage,
purely nominal, influenced in no way the mind of the kings
of France, which the memory of Clovis and of Charlemagne
filled with a just pride. Mter some attempts on the part
of the Germans, the famous battle of Bouvines, gained by
Philip Augustus, decided forever that France would never
be their subject. The Germans then turned towards Italy,
but the hatred which the popes nourished against them, the
dissensions fomented by the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the
rivalries which they encountered on the part of the French
and the Spaniards, all this prevented them from making
permanent conquests. Besides, if one considers the time
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 Hermeneutic Interpretation
which had rolled by from the accession of Rudolph of Haps-
burg to the reign of Maximilian, immediate predecessor of
Charles the Fifth, one will see that Germany, a prey to all
the calamities which a government without unity and with-
out energy involves, could not form any regular plan and
follow it. It was only during the reign of this prince that
the empire enjoyed any tranquillity, due to the institutions
which he founded there or to which he gave a better form. 1
Spain, after shaking off the yoke of the Saracens and
after being united under a single monarch, as I have said,
having turned her attention to the situation of things, saw
that the best thing for her to do, was to seize the power in
Italy, in order afterwards to take possession of France,
crossing both the Alps and the Pyrenees. She neglected
for the moment Portugal, which was first formed from the
conquests which Alphonso I. had made over the Moors 2 ;
judging with reason that there would be time enough to
make herself master of it once the rest of Europe should be
subjected. Already the princes of Aragon had made great
efforts to take the kingdom of Naples and at last succeeded
in spite of the vigorous contest which first the Germans
and then the French had sustained. 3 They awaited only
The most important of these was the one which bore the name of the
Imperial Chamber-a sort of federal tribunal, authorized to arbitrate on aU
the differences between the members of the Germanic corps; this tribunal,
which bore some resemblance to the Amphictyonic Council, would have led
Europe to its aim, if anything could have been able to lead it.
This Alphonso, founder of the kingdom of Portugal, was son of Henri
de Bourgogne of the House of France. He was crowned in I 139, after having
defeated five Moorish kings at the battle of Ourique.
1 It was about the year 1019 that some Norman knights, having disem-
barked in Italy, formed there settlements from which the kingdoms of Sicily
and Naples originated. The sovereigns of these kingdoms had long disputed
with the popes who claimed authority there. Instead of realizing the great
advantage of living on good terms with these pontiffs and even of recognizing
themselves their vassals, in order to protect them, they, on the contrary, per-
secuted them, made war upon them desperately and treated them often with
the utmost indignity, so that their states became prey to the greatest calami-
ties. There is no country in Europe whose history offers a series of crimes more

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 Battles of Crecy and Poitiers 327

a favourable moment to rush forth from there, and this

opportunity was afforded them.
As for France and England, which diverse vicissitudes
had, so to speak, mixed and rendered successively depen-
dent one upon the other, they mutually felt that it was
important for one of them to conquer her rival. Several
unfortunate events had given great advantage to England.
Mter the cruel battles of Crecy and Poitiers, the taking of
Calais, the captivity of King John, and the ravages caused
by the mob of rebel peasants known by the name of Jacquerie,
after the stormy minority of Charles VI., the madness of this
prince, the perfidious reign of his wife Isabella of Bavaria,
the bloody factions of the Burgundians and the Armagnacs,
ana finally the famous battle of Agincourt, it was difficult to
foresee how France could survive so many disasters.
However, in glancing over the annals of the different
states raised upon the debris of the Roman Empire, one
must concede that France, among all the others, has been
more often favoured by extraordinary and remarkable events.
Was it not in her midst that Clovis appeared, the founder of
the first regular monarchy after the invasion of the bar-
barians? Charles Martel, who arrested the progress of the
Saracens and prevented Europe from becoming again a
dependency of Asia? Charlemagne, who refounded the
Empire of the West? William the Conqueror, who made
himself King of England? Godfrey de Bouillon, whose
name is attached to the only triumph of the Crusades? and
a host of other heroes whom it would take too long to name:
Hugh Capet, Philip Augustus, Saint Louis, etc.? If one
considers the succession of kings upon the different thrones
of Europe, from the middle of the tenth century to the close

odious, of revolutions more rapid, more numerous, and more cruel. One
cannot read without horror the bloody annals. It is well known how all the
French who were found in Sicily were massaced there in 1282. The name of
the Sicilian Vespers, given to this massacre, indicates the time and depicts the
profound impiety of the assassins.

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of the fifteenth, it will be seen that there was a great ad-
vantage of force, grandeur, talent, even legitimacy among the
kings of France, and this proves what I have advanced:
that Destiny, upon which these kings relied, favoured them.
How could one imagine then that this state was about to
perish; that her language, the most beautiful and the most
virile of all those which sprang from the debris of the Latin
and Celt, heritage of the langue d'Oc, so unfortunately
drenched in the blood of the Albigenses, 1 this tongue destined
to enlighten Europe, was about to give place to the Saxon
or at least receive a bizarre mixture from it? This seemed,
however, inevitable, had it not been for a providential event,
for at the moment Destiny was evidently too weak and the
Will was divided or impotent.
Who could describe the situation in which France was?
Charles VI. had lost his mind. The French, a prey to inter-
nal factions, were hated and persecuted by enemies. The
massacre at Genoa had just been ordered. The Duke of
Burgundy, all powerful in Paris, after having caused the
assassination of the Duke of Orleans, sent to the gallows
or condemned to exile all those of the party of Armagnacs
who offended him. The English, conquerors at Agincourt,
inundated and ravaged the provinces. Isabella of Bavaria,
ambitious queen, adulterous spouse, and unnatural mother,
favoured the enemy, oppressed her husband, and persecuted
her son. This young prince, too much irritated perhaps
by so many outrages, had seen the Duke of Burgundy struck
down at his feet from the blow of a hatchet, by one of his
servants eager to avenge him. Accused of this murder he
had been summoned by the parlement of Paris, condemned
for contumacy, and declared incapable of reigning. His
sister Catherine had been given as wife to the King of Eng-
It was in the lanpe tl'Oc that the first attempts of poetry have been made
by the troubadours; it i'l this tongue which has preceded and polished the
Castilian and Italian and which has given grammatical fonns to them as weU
as to the French.

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 Isabella of Bavaria 329
land, and without respect for the laws of the kingdom which
excluded daughters from the throne, the crown had been
bestowed upon her as dowry. The Destiny of England
prevailed, France was about to succumb.
Nevertheless, Providence, which wished her welfare,
arranged from afar the extraordinary event which would
save her. Three women, too celebrated unfortunately, had
been the prophetic instruments of as many calamities: Elea-
nor of Guienne, wife of Louis-le-Jeune; Isabelle of France,
sister of Charles the Fair; and that Isabella of Bavaria,
wife of the mad Charles VI. of whom I have just spoken.
The first had stripped France of her most fertile provinces,
to carry them as dowry to the King of England, Henry of
Anjou, whom she had married after having been divorced
by Louis-le-Jeune, because of her love-intrigues in Palestine;
the second, murderess of her husband, had given her claim
to the crown of France to her son Edward III. and kindled
the first war between the two kingdoms; the third had con-
sented to disinherit her son, in order to call her son-in-law,
Henry V., to the throne. All three were dishonoured by
their intrigues, their cruelties, or their vices. 1 Providence,
1 It is said that Eleanor, becoming enamoured in Palestine of a young

Turk of rare beauty named Sala-Heddin, had forgotten for him her duty to
her husband, her country, and her religion. The king, who should have
punished her misconduct by shutting her up in a cloister, contented himself
with divorcing her and giving her all her inheritance, with which she enriched
her second husband. The King of England, as the result of this marriage, united
the dukedoms of Nonnandy and Aquitaine, the earldoms of Anjou, Poitiers,
of Touraine and Maine, and became thus one of the most formidable vassals
of the crown of France. Some years after, John, brother of Richard Creur-de-
Lion, having stabbed his nephew Arthur who was the legitimate heir of Richard,
in order to reign in his stead, being summoned to the tribunal of Philip-
Augustus, King of France, was judged by his peers and declared guilty of
felony. All the lands which he possessed in France were confiscated, which
resulted in his being surnamed Jean-sans-Terres. It was this assassin-prince
who signed the Great Charter and thus gave place to a new parliamentary
organization in England.
Isabelle of France married Edward II. and lived unhappily with her hus-
band. She profited by the troubles in the kingdom to ann herseH against

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having resolved to overthrow by the arm of a pure and
saintly woman the edifice of shame and scandal raised by
these three dishonourable women, determined upon an
extraordinary movement, and its all-powerful action, domi-
nating both the fatality of Destiny and the strength of Will,
struck, in a humble village, the heart of a young girl, of
whom it made a new Voluspa. Joan of Arc was her name.
She was called la Pucelle because of her chastity. Let us
give honour to her memory and may France, whom she
saved from an odious yoke, rejoice to have given her birth.
This maid, the honour of her sex, was born in poverty;
but from the most tender age had manifested a quiet incli-
nation for religious ideas of a certain form. She believed
in fairies, whose names and mysterious fables had echoed
around her cradle, and when she was old enough to lead the
sheep to pasture, she wandered often in the woods, thinking
of those deities of the groves, whom her ancestors, the Gauls,
had worshipped. She did not give any account of her senti-
him and declare war. She pursued him and his favourite, Spenser, with an
incredible obstinacy. Mter having taken possession of Bristol, she had the
father of Spenser, aged ninety years, hanged, and soon, seizing the favourite
himself, subjected him, before her own eyes, to unspeakable atrocities. This
implacable and jealous woman, having afterwards convoked a parliament,
caused the judicial deposition of the unfortunate Edward, who a short time
after suffered a most cruel death. Edward III. who succeeded his father,
avenged him by having Mortimer, the lover of the queen, hanged, and by
shutting the queen herself up for the rest of her days; but that did not prevent
him from taking advantage of the pretended rights which she had given him
to the throne of France, to kindle a violent war against Philip de Valois,
successor of Charles the Fair, which put France within an inch of her downfall.
Isabella of Bavaria, mother of Charles VII., was angry with her son, chiefly
because this young prince, having discovered in a certain church some money
she had hidden there to satisfy her passions, had used it to assist the needs of
the State. It is said that her husband, in a lucid moment, having surprised
her with one of her paramours, had him sewed in a sack and thrown into the
Seine. She was imprisoned in a stronghold, but she found the means of calling
to her succour the Duke of Burgundy and to interest him in her rescue. He
rescued her and formed with her a league in which the King of England was
concerned. Such were the three women without honour and without virtue,
upon whose rights the English based their claims to France.

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 Joan of Arc 331
ments. Her meagre instruction did not enable her to distin-
guish its nature from the more modern ideas which were
imparted to her. The Virgin Mary, with whose devotion
she was inspired, was for her only a fairy more sympathetic
and more powerful than the others; she had often invoked
her, in the ruins of an old chapel, hidden in the woods, and
asked her to make her virtuous and strong.
This habit of Joan of Arc, which had taken root in her
childhood, remained with her when, to help her parents,
she was forced to go into service in a hostelry in Vaucou-
leurs. She went as often as she could to visit her cherished
chapel, placing flowers there and offering her prayer. Her
position at the hostelry permitted her to see and hear many
of the travellers; she heard their narratives regarding the
misfortunes of France and the deplorable condition into
which King Charles VII. was reduced, at that time banished
and a fugitive, wandering over the ruins of his own kingdom,
which a foreign regent possessed, in the name of an infant
of nine months; for in the space of a few years the King of
England had died as well as the unfortunate Charles VI.
These tales, often accompanied with sighs, imprecations, or
tears, electrified the young heroine; she felt her heart beat
with indignation and her brow redden with anger; she asked
why it was that no man was found strong enough to fight
these insolent foreigners and replace the legitimate king
upon the throne. She was answered that a great many
brave ones had died in the battles of Agincourt, Cravant,
and Verneuil, and that the others, besieged in Orleans, the
last resource of the French, might be considered prisoners.
If this city were taken, she was told, there would be no more
hope, and it would be taken unless there were a miracle.
"This miracle will take place!" she cried with an inspired
voice. They looked at her with astonishment; but how
dare to hope for a miracle?
In the meanwhile she carried the flowers to her solitary
chapel and prayed there with a fervour so earnest that, one

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332 Hermeneutic Interpretation
day, drawn on by the impulse of her devotion, she swooned
without losing consciousness, and seemed to feel the air
agitated and driven back against her by the movement of
a celestial being lowering himself majestically on two ex-
tended wings: "Joan," he said, "thou asketh who can save
France and her king; it will be thou. Go, don the cuirass
and seize the sword; thou wilt triumph in the name of God
who sent me; the siege of Orleans will be raised and thou
wilt crown thy king at Rheims." At these words, it seemed
to her that the divine messenger directed towards her
an undulating flame which attached itself to her heart
and burned her with an ardour heretofore unknown. All
disappeared.
The young Voluspa arose from her ecstasy, transported
with joy and full of a prophetic hope; she told to whom
would listen, the vision which she had had, and declared
without any mystery, as though inspired by heaven, that
she would change the destiny of France. The firmness of
her voice, the divine fire which shone in her eyes showed
neither deceit nor madness; the force of truth made itself
felt. She was taken to a venerable priest, who, having heard
her, did not hesitate to present her to Seigneur de Beaudri-
court, then governor of Vaucouleurs. This seigneur, after
having questioned her many times, decided to have her
conducted to the king. At the moment when she appeared
before the monarch, he had just received news that the city
of Orleans, although defended by the brave Count de Dunois,
was on the point of surrendering; he was already planning
his retreat into Dauphiny; the words of the heroine, the
firm and modest manner with which she explains her mis-
sion, impress and reassure him; he feels in her presence
a hope which he believed lost, reborn; he commands that
arms be given her and that her orders should be obeyed.
She hastens to victory. In a few days, she is beneath the
walls of Orleans; she forces the English to raise the siege,
attacks their General Talbot at Patai, puts him to rout,

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 Message of Ia Pucelle to English 333
hastens back to the king, and conducts him in triumph into
Rheims, carrying herself the oriflamme, and has him crowned
in the midst of the acclamations of his army; thus was the
oracle of Vaucouleurs accomplished.
Joan, who saw her mission happily fulfilled, wished to
retire. Timid outside of battle, modest at the height of
glory, without letting herself become dazzled by the adora-
tions of a people drunk with joy, who came in crowds before
her, censer in hand, she asked only to return to her humble
hermitage. Charles opposed it. In yielding to the wishes
of the king, she gave herself to another destiny than hers:
could she expect to be deceived? No, without doubt; the
king, who abandoned her, was abandoned by Providence.
France was saved because it had to be; but the ungrateful
monarch, who disregarded the hand which had protected
him, did not enjoy his triumph; he perished miserably and
after a little time his line became extinct. 2

When Joan of Arc was presented to the king, this prince, undecided as to
what he should do, thought it fitting to have this inspired maid examined by
the parletnem of Poitiers. At first she was asked to perform miracles to con-
firm her mission. "I have not come," she replied, "to perform mimcles; but
lead me to Orleans and I will give you positive signs of my mission."-" But,"
they replied, "if God wishes to save France, what is the need of armies and
battles?"-"The men of arms," she added, "will fight for my God and the
Lord will give the victory."
When she returned from Poitiers the king received her with the greatest
honours. He had a complete suit of armour made for her, except the sword,
for which she sent to Sainte-Catherine de Fier-Bois, in the tomb of an old
knight, where it was found as she had described it without ever having seen
it. In appearing before Orleans to raise the siege, she had this remarkable
letter written to the English, which she herself threw into their entrenchments
on the tip of an arrow: "Listen to the message of God and la Pualle, English,
who have no right to the kingdom of France, God orders you by me Jeanne
la Pualk to evacuate our forts and retire."
2 After the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims, Joan asked earnestly

permission to go. "Henceforth," she said, "I shall not regret to die." And
when asked if she had some revelation concerning death, replied: "No;
God commanded me only to raise the siege of Orleans and to conduct the king
to Rheims. . . The king will give me pleasure in restoring me to my parents
and to my former condition." The king detained her only to abandon her

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334 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Never perhaps had Providence manifested its power in a.
less equivocal manner; one might say that the arm which it
extended over France was shown without disguise. The
laws of necessity and liberty which she had imposed upon
herself had been suspended; this was evident and France
did not feel it. France saw her wonderful heroine given
over by a calamitous destiny to the Duke of Luxembourg,
sold by this wretch to the English, dragged to Rouen before
an iniquitous tribunal, to perish in flames like an infamous
sorceress inspired by the infernal Spirit. x France saw it and

afterwards in a cowardly manner. It is well known how, tormented by con-

tinual terrors, this prince let himself die of hunger at the age of fifty-eight, for
fear of being poisoned by his son Louis XI., in 1461. His line ended in 1498
in the person of Charles VIII.
Joan of Arc was wounded and taken prisoner while defending Compi~e.
Her place was no longer there. Her warlike mission had been fulfilled at
Rheims, as she herself said. It appears certain that the University of Paris
presented a petition against her, accusing her of heresy and magic, because
she believed in fairies. This divine heroine was judged at Rouen, by a bishop
of Beauvais, named Cauchon, five other French bishops, a single English
bishop, assisted by a Dominican monk, vicar of the Inquisition, and by the
doctors of the University. Thus it was the Franks, Burgundians or Normans,
who were the most guilty, since they sold to the English innocent blood. The
duke of Bedford said to these iniquitous judges: "The King of England has
paid dearly for her and he wishes that she be burned." The English who acted
openly in this affair as implacable and obstinate enemies, were cruel, but not
traitors and vile as the judges whom they influenced.
The divine heroine could not at first, however, be condemned to the stake;
she was simply to fast on bread and water in a perpetual prison, as a supersti-
tious person, a diviner of the devil, a blasphemer of God and His saints, erring
many times in her faith in Christ. But soon accused of having again resumed
her male clothes, that had been left to tempt her, her execrable judges delivered
her to the secular arm to be burned alive May 30, 1431. She had raised the
siege of Orleans May 8, 1429, and crowned the king at Rheims July 17, the
same year. The manuscript procedure of Joan of Arc still exists in the original.
One notices in it that the responses of the heroine are always equally prudent,
truthful, and firm. She said several times to her judges: "Good Fathers,
consider now the burden you are imposing upon yourself." Questioned as
to why she had dared to assist at the coronation of Charles with her standard,
she replied: "It is just, that the one who has taken part in a labour should
have the honour." When asked by what sorcery she had inspired the sol-
diers, replied: '"Look,'" I said, "'enter bravely among the English,' and I

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 Martyrdom of Joan of Arc 335
could allow it! Charles did not make a movement, did not
risk a hair of his head, did not cover the fields of Rouen with
dead bodies to save her! And France still dared to complain
of the evils which she endured, which she still endures because
of this horrible outrage! But Providence is just; the pest
which ravaged Athens avenged the death of Socrates; the
Jews, dispersed over the face of the earth for eighteen centu-
ries, still expiate their cowardly deicide; France, retarded in
her career, delivered to endless evils, has been obliged to be
absolved of the death of Joan of Arc. The fellowship of
peoples is not a chimera. It is not with impunity that
nations can kill their great men or with their hands blindly
break the instruments of Providence. The reaction is in
that case always equal to the action and the chastisement
equal to the forfeit. It is in vain that one says that indi-
viduals are, for the most part, innocent; this is not true:
there are no innocents other than those who are opposed
to crime; those who allow it, share it.
myself entered first." Accused of having profaned the names of Jesus and
Mary, she replied ingenuously: "It is from your clergymen that I have learned
to make use of them, not only for my standard, but even for the letters which
I have written." As for her visions, she did not once contradict them:
"Whether they be good or evil spirits, it is true," she said, "that they have
appeared to me."

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 CHAPTER VII

CAUSES OF A DOUBLE MOVEMENT OF THE WILL IN THE POUTI

CAL SYSTEM AND IN THE CULT-FIFTEENTH REVOLUTION
-DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD

PROVIDENCE had wished France to be saved; she was

saved; but the French, guilty of horrible ingratitude
towards it, had to suffer and did suffer. All that pertained
to the feudal system was particularly encumbered with
evils. The sanguinary reign of Louis XI. gave her a mortal
blow from which she never recovered. This terrible reign
left in the minds of all a profound impression, which could
not be effaced by the brilliant but useless reigns of Charles
VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I. At this time an immense
movement took place in Europe. If Providence could have
been recognized in it, the dawn of grandeur and of felicity
would have opened for her. But as we have seen, France
eminently favoured, voluntarily closed her eyes to its light
and her victorious monarch, attributing all his success to
his star, abandoning the wonderful instrument which had
procured it for him, occupied himself only with prophetic
or volitive objects. After having established a corps of
permanent troops, after having founded by his own will
the levying of taxes, he dominated by means of both the
barons and the peoples and annihilated the sacerdotal
supremacy by the promulgation of a schismatic act
called Pragmatic Sanction. All these means which he
336

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 Temporal Sovereignty of Popes 337
bequeathed to his successors were so many weapons which
they abused.
Whereas the Will of Man received thus the laws of Des-
tiny in France, they were also received in Italy. The pon-
tifical throne dishonoured by Alexander VI. had become,
under Julius II., a purely monarchical throne. This pope
had been only an audacious warrior and able politician.
Leo X., who succeeded him, was a splendid monarch, a
generous king, protector of letters and of arts; but he was
not a sovereign pontiff. Although he possessed virtues
which placed him far above Borgia, the real truth must be
stated: he had no more faith in the dogmas of his cult than
the other. In general, the popes having become temporal
sovereigns, unable as sovereign pontiffs to place themselves
above the councils, they had done so as monarchs from the
time of Eugene IV. and were accustomed, as other kings,
to regard religion in general and that which they professed
in particular, only as a necessary bridle, a political instru-
ment, of which, by their position, they were declared trustees
and governors. All the rigour which the greater part of
them displayed against heretics and innovators, no longer
had its source as formerly, in religious fanaticism, in holy
zeal, respectable though blind, but only in the necessity of
preserving the forms of a useful cult whose foundation
they did not judge susceptible of examination. In ecclesi-
astical affairs all their maxims were fixed and invariable,
because they had no aim except to preserve that which was,
without seeking in the least to go deeply into it, and in this
respect each new pontiff adopted, as far as the spiritual
was concerned, the plan of his predecessor; but as to the
temporal, on the contrary, each one had to yield to condi-
tions, to trace a particular course, and often resort to ruse
in order to supply the force which he lacked. Thus the
court of the popes was regarded as the cradle of that modem
policy which consists in finesse of negotiations and in astute-
ness of behaviour. There was almost nothing that this
Ia

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court did not attempt in this respect and if it did not osten-
sibly ally itself with the Mussulmans of Constantinople,
there exist only too many proofs that it listened more than
once to their propositions.
But what the court of Rome dared not do, at least openly,
that of France did. This court, having lost sight of the
real interests of Europe, thinking only of her own, united
with the Turks and with the same pen with which she had
made her alliance with the Swiss, signed her treaty with the
Grand Sultan. Thus as I have already said, she united
the fatality of Destiny to the force of Will and believed her-
self sufficiently skilful to maintain both and to master them
equally. This boldness, which emptied upon France a
deluge of evils under the reigns which followed that of
Francis I., procured for her nevertheless a moment of splen-
dour under that of Louis XIV., a splendour too soon dimmed
even during the lifetime of this monarch and too dearly
paid for by the humiliations which afflicted that of Louis XV.
and the horrible misfortunes which terminated that of
Louis XVI.
If we reflect a moment upon the situation of Europe,
after, on one side, the Turks established in Constantinople
had raised there an insurmountable barrier on the Asiatic
side and, on the other, France, having annihilated the feudal
system, had united in one single man, under Louis XI.,
only to form a monarchy almost despotic; one will feel that
the Will of Man, whose essence is liberty, menaced on all
sides with an absolute compression, must find ways to burst
forth. Everywhere despotism tried to establish itself and
with it, the necessity of Destiny. This inflexible Will just
missed in France the most excellent occasion of becoming
united with Providence; but Providence and Destiny dis-
pleased it equally. It rejected any sort of yoke and sought
to submit all to its free will. In its constantly increasing
distress, it considered a double movement whose means were
chosen with an admirable art. On the one side, it roused

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 Discovery of the New World 339

the mercantile industry of the Italians and the Portuguese,

which had been hindered by the conquests of the Turks in
the East, and drove them to new discoveries in the West;
on the other, it exalted the systematic pride of the English
and German monks, offended by the arrogance of the ultra-
popish, and excited them to submit to the examination of
the reason of the dogmas which the popes had resolved to
sustain. By the first means, it extended its domain and
prepared places of refuge in case of defeat; by the second
it engaged with the only weapons left to it, in a combat
whose chances offered it advantages.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, an inhabitant
of the town of Amalfi in the kingdom of Naples, named
Flavio Giola, had invented or rather renewed the use of the
compass, and by means of this instrument as simple as sure,
had made navigators able to undertake long voyages. Al-
ready the Portuguese had profited by it in crossing the At-
lantic Ocean, on the bosom of which they discovered the
island of Madeira and the Azores. They had crossed the
equinoctial line and seen a new sky roll over their heads,
whose constellations were unknown to them, when a Genoese
named Christopher Columbus, hearing of their enterprises
towards the South, imagined that sailing westward, follow-
ing the course of the sun, he would undoubtedly find another
continent. Genoa, his native country and the court of
France, of whom it is claimed that he asked for ships to
accomplish his hazardous scheme, rejected his proposition.
Spain accepted it. He set sail August 3, 1492, and on
Christmas day of the same year arrived at Haiti, today
San Domingo. Soon the rumour of his discovery spread
abroad and when, after having returned to Europe, Columbus
undertook his second and third voyages, a crowd of adven-
turers of all nations followed him. Americus Vespucius,
whose name was given to the New World which he did not
discover; Alvarez Cabral, who was the first to land on the
This Americus Vespucius, who gave his name to America, passed into

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340 Hermeneutic Interpretation
shores of Brazil; Fernando Cortez and Pizarro, conquerors
of Mexico and Peru, were the most famous. Fortune did
not follow their success, in which Providence had not taken
part and they had not even the glory of it. Nearly all
perished miserably, and Columbus himself, persecuted by a
base intriguer named Bobadilla, sent back from Haiti as a
criminal, arrived in Spain loaded with chains. King Ferdi-
nand set him at liberty, but without doing him justice,
which so angered Columbus that, when dying in sorrow a
short time after, he ordered that the chains with which he
had been burdened should be buried with him in his coffin.
that part of the world as an adventurer with a certain Ojeda, who, without
his consent, followed directly in the footsteps of Columbus. Americus was
a Florentine. He wrote an account of his voyage, and it was this account
written with elegance which gave him his reputation. Columbus, with aU
his rights, failed before this skilful writer. Unjust posterity bas not called
Columbia, as it ought, the fourth part of the world, which Columbus had dis-
covered, but A merius. AU that the impartial historian can do at present is,
in speaking of the entire hemisphere, to call it the Columbia Hmriltihere,
as I have done.

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 CHAPTER VIII

WHAT THE CONDITION OF THE NEW WORLD WAS AT THE TIME

OF ITS DISCOVERY-REVOLUTIONS THAT IT HAD
EXPERIENCEI.r--ISLAND OF ATLANTIS

THEhimself
new hemisphere which Columbus did not discover
but rather caused to be discovered, was a
new world relatively to the old, younger, more recently
sprung from the depth of the waters, producing in the three
kingdoms substances or beings upon which nature impressed
visibly all the traits of youth. The general and geological
forms disclosed a remarkable magnificence, but the vital
principle little developed was still languishing. Mountains
were higher than in the other hemisphere, rivers greater,
lakes more numerous and more vast, and yet the vegetable
kingdom lacked sap and vigour. There were no animals
which could compare with those of the Old World. Even
the lions and the tigers, or rather the pumas and the jaguars
called by these names, had neither the intrepidity of those
of Africa, nor their voracity. The climate was in no way
like that of the other hemisphere. It was colder and more
humid. Pliant and latescent vegetables, venomous reptiles,
troublesome insects propagated there in abundance and
with astonishing rapidity.
The soil but little productive and as though struck with
a native impotence supported only a small number of in-
habitants. At the time when Europeans first stepped foot
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in this immense region, there were only two nations entirely
formed: that of Mexico and that of Peru. All the rest of
the continent was peopled with small independent tribes,
often at enormous distances from each other, destitute of
laws, art, and industry and, what is very remarkable, deprived
of the assistance of domestic animals. The two nations,
which had begun their career of civilization, had as yet
taken only the first steps. They had scarcely the first
features of the social state. They were infant peoples,
who, left to themselves, protected by Providence which
they were beginning to recognize, submitted to a Destiny
by no means rigorous, would have developed gradually
and would have succeeded in astonishing us perhaps by their
grandeur, if, too soon exposed to the fatal movement of the
European Will, they had not been crushed in their flower
and indeed long before they could have reached their zenith.
Can this cruel event be explained? Without doubt.
Up to this point I have not hesitated to give explanations,
and this one here cannot escape any more than the other
from the principles which I have laid down. I have often
said that the Will of Man, good or bad, is irrefragable and
that Providence cannot arrest its action without infringing
upon its own laws. But Destiny, which draws with it an
irresistible necessity, by its very essence opposes this action
and combats it. On whatever side the victory remains,
the result is always favourable to the end which Providence
has proposed; for it never can have anything but loss of
time or change of form. Besides, note this: whether Destiny
triumphs or the Will, neither of these two powers can triumph
without causing its opposite to be created instantly, that is,
without the victory of Will throwing a germ of a prophetic
event which will develop, or without the victory of Destiny
provoking a volitive cause which will have its effect.
Now, the Will, strongly restrained in Europe by Destiny,
escapes, and takes a course towards America which it can-
not do without using instruments among men of volition,

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 Spaniards in America 343
in whose breast more or less violent passions were ferment-
ing. If these men had been enlightened and moderate,
they would have readily felt that their glory as well as their
interest recommended them to care for the mild, timid
people whom fate exposed to their arms; they would have
seen that they could subdue them without destroying them
and conquer America without ravaging it; but unfortunately
it all happened otherwise. The Spaniards, whom the im-
pressed movement hurled from one hemisphere to the other,
were ignorant men, greedy and savage, who, long bent be-
neath the chains which adroit politics had given them,
avenged themselves by falling with furor upon an infant peo-
ple incapable of resisting them. Like wolves, after a long
tormenting hunger, they precipitated themselves upon these
weak sheep to devour them. They acted in a body as a
single brigand acts when encountering a traveller in the
depth of a wood: he kills him for his money. Providence
cannot prevent this voluntary crime, when the Destiny of
the traveller does not prevent it, unless through a miracle,
which is repugnant to its laws; but it avenges it by attach-
ing the punishment to the crime, as effect to cause. Thus
the Spaniards in massacring the Americans committed a
national crime, for which all the Spanish nation became
responsible and had to expiate it. Remember here what I
said in the beginning of this book, regarding the solidarity
of the peoples. This solidarity extends throughout all
generations and binds the children as well as the fathers,
because in these cases the fathers do not differ from the
children.
But perhaps an attentive reader and profound thinker
will stop me at this point to say to me that, supposing the
national crime be punished as the individual crime, he does
not see what reparation, what good this chastisement pro-
cures, either to the people destroyed by savage conquerors
or to the traveller killed by a brigand. To this I reply that
I should have taken care not to write upon matters so ardu-

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344 Hermeneutic Interpretation
ous, if I had thought that a man in losing his life lost all,
and that a people could be destroyed. I do not think this
at all. I believe that individual or national existence is
suspended by death or by destruction, but not destroyed.
There is only, as I have recently said, loss of time or change
of forms. What is but interrupted will begin again. I
beg the reader to recall a comparison which I have already
made. 1 I see an acorn which sprouts and which, if nothing
stops its destiny, will produce an oak. My Will is opposed
to this effect; I crush the acorn; the oak is interrupted. But
have I destroyed, annihilated the principle which acted in
the acorn? This is absurd; a new Destiny begins again
for it. It becomes decomposed, enters into the elements
and, insinuating itself again into the roots of the tree, mounts
with the sap and reproduces an acorn similar to the first
and stronger. What did I accomplish by my destructive
action? Nothing at all with regard to the acorn; but much
perhaps with regard to myself; especially if I did it with
malice, envy, impatience, or with any other bad sentiment;
for while I believed I was operating on the acorn, it was
upon myself that I operated. This comparison, well
understood, can solve many difficulties.
Let us return to the Americans. When the Spaniards
encountered them they were still in the infancy of the social
state; none of their faculties was wholly developed; they
were weak physically as well as morally; it could be distinctly
seen that they belonged to a race different from the White
and the Black. 2 They belonged to the Red race but were

In the Introductory Dissertation.

At the time I am writing, America for more than three centuries has been
known and frequented by Europeans who have worked great changes there,
as much by the mingling of their own blood with that of the natives, as by
that of the black people whom they have imported. They have also influenced
much the two inferior kingdoms, the vegetable and animal, by cultivation
and the cross-breeding of animals. So it is not in America itself that one can
know what this country was before its discovery, but in the descriptions which
were made of it at this time. The natives of the Columbian hemisphere had,

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 The Red Race 345
not pure. They were the result of a primal mixture at a
very remote epoch when the White race did not yet
exist and of a second mixture much less ancient when
this race had existed for some time. These indigenous
peoples had lost the trace of their origin; only a vague
tradition survived amongst them which declared their
ancestors descended from the highest mountains of that
hemisphere. The Mexicans claimed that their first legis-
lators came from a country situated at the north-east
of their empire. If attention is given here, the two principal
epochs of which I have spoken will be found in these two
traditions; the first dates back to the disaster of Atlantis,
whose memory is perpetuated among all nations; the second
belongs to an emigration of the Borean Race which was
effected from Iceland to Greenland and from Greenland to
Labrador, as far as Mexico, traversing the countries which
today bear the name of Canada and Louisiana. This
second epoch is separated from the other by several thousand
years.
The most authentic narrative which we have of the dis-

in general, a red-brown complexion inclining to copper. They were beardless,

and with no other hair than their long black hair, coarse and thin. Their
constitution was weak and without virile force. There were men who had
milk in their breasts like women and who could in case of necessity have nursed
their children. They ate little, endured fatigue with difficulty, and rarely
attained old age. Their short and monotonous life was not exposed to any
excess of violent passions. Ambition and love had but little value in their
mind. Their virtues and their vices were likewise undeveloped. Their
intellectual faculties had hardly attained a first development. In several
tribes were individuals so destitute of foresight that they took no care for the
morrow. The women were not very prolific, not much esteemed, and enjoyed
no rights. In certain places their servitude was intolerable. With the ex-
ception of the two nations whose civilization was roughly sketched, the other
tribes were in still the most savage condition, strangers to industry, and having
only confused ideas of property. Among these tribes, those who lived by
fishing were the most stupid; afterwards came the hunters whose instincts
were more developed, but who were lazy and poisoned their arrows to hunt
with more facility. Wherever farmers were, there civilization began. The
entire hemisphere did not possess a herdsman. They had no domestic animals.

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346 Hermeneutic Interpretation
aster of Atlantis has been preserved by Plato, who attri-
butes it, in his dialogue of Timaus, to an Egyptian priest
discoursing at Sais with Solon. This priest dates back the
catastrophe of which he speaks to more than nine thousand
years; which gives us an antiquity of about eleven thousand
four hundred years.
The island of Atlantis was, according to him, greater
than Mrica and Asia together; it was situated in the Atlan-
tic Ocean, facing the Pillars of Hercules. There were kings
celebrated for their power who, not only reigned over this
magnificent country, over all the adjacent islands, but even
over a great part of Mrica as far as Egypt and over all
western Europe as far as Tyrrhene. They sought to enslave
the rest of the Eastern hemisphere, when there came unex-
pectedly terrible earthquakes followed by a frightful deluge;
the people opposite were all swallowed up in the abyss and
in the space of a day Atlantis disappeared.
It is difficult not to recognize, in the description given
by the priest at Sais of this island greater than Mrica and
Asia, the Columbian hemisphere, situated exactly as he says,
on the bosom of the sea, which we still name, from this
famous island, Atlantic Ocean, and opposite the Pillars of
Hercules; thus it is certain that the new continent called
today America is no other than this island of which anti-
quity has related so many wonders; only it was not repre-
sented then as we see it in our day; it was spread out much
more towards the Austral pole, to which it perhaps inclined,
and less towards the Boreal pole. The Austral Race had
dominated here as the Borean Race dominates our hemi-
sphere today. The race was red; it had civilized the Black
Race and as the Egyptian priest said, it supported numerous
colonies in Europe and Asia which belonged to them almost
entirely. At this epoch, that is to say, about twelve thou-
sand years ago, the terrestrial globe was not in the position
where we see it; the Boreal pole instead of being about
twenty-three degrees higher, was, on the contrary, lower

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 The Austral Race 347
in the same proportion and allowed the Austral pole to
dominate; so that the mass of waters that weigh today
upon this pole weighed upon the opposite pole, and covered
chiefly the northern part of the Columbian hemisphere,
perhaps to the fiftieth degree. It is equally presumable
that upon the Eastern hemisphere the waters extended to
the sixtieth and covered all the northern part of the ancient
continent from Norway to Kamchatka.
At the most flourishing moment of the Atlantic Empire
and when this Empire was about to achieve the conquest
of the world, a horrible catastrophe took place. Length
of time has been able to conceal the causes, but has not
hindered the rumour from being handed down to us. There
exists almost no nation which has not perpetuated the
gloomy memory in lugubrious ceremonies; it is narrated in all
the sacred books; and the very traces which have remained,
imprinted on the surface of the globe and even in its inte-
rior, announce everywhere a frightful upheaval which proves
sufficiently in the eyes of thoughtful men that these tales
are not illusions.
Philosophers and naturalists of all centuries searching
the physical causes which could have brought about these
crises of nature called deluges or cataclysms have found them
either inadequate or visibly erroneous. Theosophists have
all agreed on the metaphysical cause; they have said that it
was the absolute perversion of the peoples and their entire
abandonment of Providence that brought it to pass. Moses,
who speaks of it as a calamitous possibility, is precise on
this point. Pythagoras and Plato do not differ from Kong-
tzee or from Meng-tzee, and Krishna agrees with Odin.
But although the metaphysical primordial cause may be
admitted, there remains none the less, great difficulties
respecting the secondary and physical causes.
However, I must say here an important thing, of which
I shall speak elsewhere at length; it is, that there are two
kinds of deluges which must not be confused: the universal

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348 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Deluge, the one of which Moses speaks under the name of
Maboul; the one which the Brahmans know under the name
of Dinapralayam is a crisis of nature which puts an end to
its action; it is a renewal by absolute dissolution of created
beings. The description of this deluge, the knowledge of
its causes and of its effects, belong to cosmogonyr; this is
not the place to speak of it, since it does not influence alone
the Social State of Man by interrupting it but by destroy-
ing it altogether. The deluges of the second kind are those
which occasion only an interruption in the general course
of things by partial inundations more or less considerable.
Among these cataclysms the one that destroyed Atlantis
is the most terrible, since it submerged an entire hemisphere
and caused a devastating flood to pass over the other, which
laid it waste. The savants, who have occupied themselves
searching for the cause, have not found it, as I have said,
because they had not the requisite data for this and, further-
more, they were so prejudiced that they regarded it from
a viewpoint either too remote or too near; as when they
contented themselves with the eruption of a volcano, an
earthquake, the overflowing of a lake, an inland sea, or indeed
when they accused the tail of a comet of this catastrophe.
I am drawn on to unveil entirely this natural cause, of which
I have just allowed a glimpse in speaking of the earlier con-
dition of the globe. I could not give now the geological
proofs because they would lead me into details too foreign
to this work; but if the geologists wish to examine attentively
the configuration of the sides of the two hemispheres and
the movement which the currents of the sea still preserve,
they will feel that I have spoken the truth.
The frightful cataclysm that submerged Atlantis was
caused by a sudden movement of the terrestrial globe, which,
suddenly raising the Boreal pole, which had become lowered,
caused it to take a contrary position to what it had formerly.
1 I shall speak of this in the Commentaire which I am planning on the

SepMI' of Moses and principally on the ten chapters of the Bereshith.

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 Atlantis Submerged 349
In this movement, which perhaps had many oscillations, the
mass of waters, which had been upon this pole, rolled with
violence towards the Austral pole, returned to the Boreal
pole, and back again many times towards the opposite pole,
where it finally became fixed, overpowered with its weight.
The earthwork gave way in many places, particularly where
it covered caverns and deep anfractuosities and, in falling,
opened immense abysses where the waves rushed furiously,
engulfing the debris which they had drawn after them and
the multitude of victims whom they had deprived of life. The
Eastern Hemisphere resisted longer and was only washed,
so to speak, by the waves which crossed over it without
stopping; but the other was everywhere sunk and covered
with stagnant waters which remained there a long time.
All the Austral lands, where Atlantis properly so-called was,
disappeared. At the opposite pole, the Borean lands
emerged from the depths of the waters and became the cradle
of the White or Borean Race, whence we issued. Thus it
was to the disaster of Atlantis that we owe in a way our
existence. The Black Race, that I have named Sudeen, of
African origin, being born, as I have said, in the neighbour-
hood of the equinoctial line, suffered much from this catas-
trophe, but infinitely less than the Red or Austral Race
which perished almost entirely. Only a few men, whom a
fortunate destiny found upon the Appalachian Mountains,
the Cordillera, or the Tapayas were able to escape from the
destruction. The Mexicans, Peruvians, and Brazilians had
a special veneration for these mountains. They had a vague
memory that they had been a refuge for their ancestors
It is said that still in our day the savages of Florida make a
pilgrimage four times a year to Mount Olaymi, one of the
highest of the Appalachians, to offer a sacrifice to the sun,
in memory of this event.

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 CHAPTER IX

CONQUESTS OF THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR CRIMES IN AMERICA

-SETTLEMENT OF THE PORTUGUESE IN ASIA-
GENERAL RESULTS

BACON believed, as I do, that America had been part

of the ancient Atlantis. He makes it clearly under-
stood in his Atlantida NOfJa. He said that the inhabitants
of this part of the world were once very powerful and that
they tried to subjugate the ancient continent. Mter the
submersion of their empire a few scattered men saved
themselves upon the summits of the mountains. These
men, he adds, rapidly degenerating, forgot all the arts and
became savages. They lived for a long time isolated and
without laws and were only united when the plains were
uncovered and they were able to inhabit them. Boulanger,
who has made great researches in this regard, thinks with
just reason that after the loss of Atlantis the people of this
hemisphere who survived fell into a stupor and wandered
for a long time without daring to found a settlement; he
believes that the savage life was the result of the terror
imprinted by this event and was the fruit of isolation and
ignorance. Many of the savants have since expanded and
commented upon these ideas which are only a renewing of
those that Plato had received directly from the Egyptians
and which he admirably described in his Book of Laws.
The men, said this philosopher, who escaped from the uni-
350

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 Columbian Hemisphere 351

versal desolation were for the most part herdsmen, inhabit-

ing the mountains, deprived of education, where all the
discoveries in art, politics, and sciences were unknown;
they were lost and not the slightest vestige remained of them.
The most flourishing cities situated in the plains and on the
borders of the sea had been carried away with their inhabit-
ants. Everywhere was a picture of vast solitude. The
immense country was without inhabitants. When two men
encountered each other upon these gloomy ruins, they
wept with emotion and with joy.
The Sudeen Race was, as I have observed, the one which
remained the strongest on the Eastern Hemisphere. It
propagated there the first and seized the dominion after
having passed through all the phases of the Social State
and having revived in its entirety the mass of human attain-
ments. I have told how it encountered the Borean Race,
still in the childhood of civilization, and I have clearly shown
the reasons which prevented it from destroying the Boreans.
I have even touched, incidentally, upon some of the opposed
reasons which later caused the ruin of the Austral Race,
when the European encountered on the Columbian hemi-
sphere the debris which was beginning to take shape again.
The principal of these reasons was that the great societies
were already fixed and had constituted considerable empires,
before having acquired the strength and necessary attain-
ments for preserving them in case of attack. I am sure that
if these empires, thus constituted, could have raised them-
selves to the highest degree of perfection, they would have
offered to the world a spectacle as novel as it would have
been interesting; but it was necessary for them to remain
for many centuries unknown to Europeans. Providence,
which had furnished the principle of these brilliant associa-
tions which were formed in Mexico and Peru, and Destiny,
which had protected them in silence, had not opposed it;
but the Will of Man, driven to seek outside of the old hemi-
sphere a refuge against the absolute servitude by which it

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was menaced, dreamed of a New World and discovered it.
At first it could only put ahead men of an audacious and
passionate character, of whom the greater part, deprived
of learning and of true morals, showed themselves as fero-
cious as greedy, and changed into base profit the noblest
motives which guided them and which they did not
comprehend.
It is impossible to read the details of the cruelties prac-
tised in America by the first Europeans who penetrated
into this country without experiencing a feeling of horror.
From their entrance into Haiti, and even under Columbus,
the Spaniards conducted themselves like tyrants. In
their fury they dared to use dogs trained to fight and to
devour the unfortunate natives and regulate the grades of
these animals according to the amount of ferocity which
they could detect in them. Undoubtedly they believed, in
advance, what some writers, fanatics or liars, said after-
wards to excuse them, that the Americans were not men and
that they could be massacred with impunity. When Colum-
bus discovered Haiti it had a million inhabitants; fifteen
years after only sixty thousand, and this number reduced to
fifteen thousand disappeared utterly after some years.'
To remedy this depopulation they deceived forty thousand
unfortunates of the Lucayos Islands that they transported
1 The Spaniards joined to force the most atrocious perfidy to repress the

revolts which their extortion brought about. The unfortunate Anacoana

who ruled over the western part of Haiti was seized during a festival which his
blind bounty had prepared for these tigers and, conducted to the town of San
Domingo, was hanged there. A man named Ovando was the scoundrel in
charge of this cowardice. It is good that his name bas passed to posterity
branded with the hot iron of reprobation. Acting from the same motive I
shall name the infamous Velasquez who, having made prisoner the Cacique
Hatuey in the island of Cuba, condemned him to be burned alive. A fanatic
monk approaching the unfortunate cacique, whilst he was tied to the stake,
counselled him to embrace the Christian religion so as to enter paradise:
"Are there any Spaniards there?" asked Hatuey. "Yes, good ones are there."
"That is enough," added the cacique, "I do not wish to go to a place where I
shall meet a single one of these brigands."

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 Conquests of Mexico and Peru 353
to Haiti to suffer the same mortality. Las Casas, witness
of these atrocities, after having made some vain efforts to
oppose them, misled by his humanity, counselled buying the
Blacks in Mrica to furnish the Spanish Colonies in America.
This idea was adopted and the fatal commerce established
by an edict of Charles V.
It should be observed that the Genoese, then constituted
in a sort of emporocratic republic, were the first to be en-
trusted with this odious monopoly. Thus there was not
enough oppression in one entire hemisphere; the other also
had to furnish slaves and a decrepit people had to come to
share the adversity of an infant people; but in the movements
which things had taken in America this was indispensable.
Since the Will meditated an establishment there, and
dragged with it the spirit of emporocracy, which is only a
degenerate republicanism, it was necessary for slavery to be
introduced so as to evade absolute misery for a part of the
people; for this is true that every emporocratic republic,
where slavery is not established, will have to found its gran-
deur upon the absolute misery of a part of the population.
It is only by means of slavery that liberty can be sustained.
Republics are oppressive by nature. When oppression,
that is to say, slavery or misery, is not manifested in its
midst, as happened in Holland, it is manifested at a distance;
and this amounts to the same thing. Slaves are always
necessary to a republic, especially if emporocracy dominates
there; whether the slaves are in their midst or beyond their
precincts, it matters not; slavery always has been and with
it all the harm that it entails.
Mter the Spaniards had ravaged the islands which sur-
rounded the Columb"an hemisphere towards the east,
they turned their efforts to the continent itself, discovered
the two sole empires which existed there, and took possession
of them. The conquests of Mexico and of Peru seemed pro-
digies of audacity when one considers the Mexicans and
Peruvians as already established peoples, capable of the
ll3

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354 Hermeneutic Interpretation
same resistance; but this was not so; they were infant peoples
of whom one could easily become master with some force
and much perfidy.
The beginning of the Empire of Mexico does not go back
beyond six centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards.
One cannot doubt, after examining their laws and their cult,
that they had received their religious and civil legislation
from the north of Europe. When, it is impossible to say.
All the documents upon which a chronology might have
been founded have been destroyed. 1 It appears probable
that this was the time when the Scandinavians, under the
name of Normans, sailed over all the seas; that one of their
vessels coming from Iceland was driven by a tempest and
touched upon the shores of Canada or Florida. Be that as
it may, according to tradition at this time there appeared a
man, favoured by heaven, who engaged several wandering
tribes to settle in the country of Anabac, the most fertile
and most pleasant in the land and there to establish them-
selves under a regular government. This state, at first
somewhat limited, extended gradually by the agglomeration
of several tribes who became united and fonned finally a
flourishing empire, of which Montezuma, dethroned by
Fernando Cortez, was the ninth emperor. The city of
Mexico, which became the centre of this empire, was founded
about the thirteenth century. This city was quite large and
thickly populated, but the structures, even the greatest,
such as temples and palaces, were badly built and indicated
an architecture still in its infancy. The religion, gloomy
and ferocious as that of the ancient Celts, permitted human
sacrifices. Forms of the feudal system were found in the
government. The emperor had under his dominion thirty
nobles of highest rank each of whom had in his own terri-
tory about one hundred thousand citizens, among whom
1 It was Jean de ZfltiiMGftJ, a French monk, first bishop of Mexioo, who

ordered that all the archives of the Mexicans, cooaisting of hieroglyphic

pictures, should be thrown into the flames.

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 Strange Customs of Peruvian Incas 355

were three hundred nobles of an inferior class. The caste

of the Mayeques or Mayas was similar to that of our ancient
serfs. In the cities as in the country the ranks were distin-
guished, and each was set apart according to his profession.
The Mexicans had only a crude knowledge of nearly all
the arts without perfecting any. Their writing consisted
only of hieroglyphic pictures. They had nevertheless a
sort of post by means of which the orders of the Emperor
or important news was sent forward from the centre to the
extremities of the Empire. Their year was divided into
eighteen months of twenty days each, to which they added
five complementary days, which indicates some astronomical
knowledge. Their agriculture, however, was imperfect. As
they did not understand money, the taxes were paid in
kind. Each thing, according to its kind was arranged in
storehouses, from which they were drawn for the service of
the state. The right of territorial property was known in
Mexico; every free man possessed there a certain extent of
land; but the social ties, still uncertain, showed as I have
said, a social state at its dawn.
The Empire of Peru, equally in its infancy, offered, how-
ever, more agreeable forms than that of Mexico. The more
gentle religion, the more brilliant cult, gave more charm and
klat to the government. The Peruvians worshipped the sun
and the moon and paid. certain homage to their ancestors
which indicated that their legislator was of Asiatic origin.
According to the Peruvian traditions, this legislator,
named Manco-Capac, appeared with his wife Mama-Ocollo
upon the shores of Lake Titicaca and announced him-
self as the son of the Sun. He assembled the wandering
tribes and persuaded them to study agriculture which he
taught them. Mter this first step, the most difficult of all,
he initiated them into useful arts, gave them laws, and had
himself recognized as their theocratic sovereign. It was on
religion that he founded every social edifice. The Peruvian
Inca was not only legislator and monarch, he was revered as

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son of the Sun. His person and his family were sacred.
The princes of the theocratic family espoused their own
sisters to avoid mixture with any other blood, as the Egyptian
monarchs had done in former times.
When the Spaniards arrived, the twelfth monarch after
Manco-Capac was upon the throne. He was named Huana-
Capac ; he died and left a son named Ata-hualpa, to whom
he wished to give only the half of his empire, the kingdom
of Quito, declaring his brother Huascar, whom he loved
dearly, heir of the kingdom of Cuzco. This unprecedented
division caused a general discontent and kindled a civil
war, of which the perfidious Pizarro took advantage to
offer aid to Ata-hualpa, to approach him and carry him off
from the midst of his subjects, which was done in such an
odious manner that one cannot recall it without indignation.
A priest, named Valverde, loaned his services for this exe-
crable act and dared even to confirm the sentence of death
which was pronounced by the ferocious Spaniard against
this unfortunate monarch. Ata-hualpa was strangled in
Peru by special grace instead of being burned alive as the
sentence ordered. In Mexico, Fernando Cortez, after having
forced Montezuma's own subjects to massacre him, had his
successor Guatimozin placed upon live coals to force him
to disclose the place where his treasures were hidden. x
The empires of Mexico and Peru were thus conquered
and subjected to the Crown of Spain, but conquests bought
with such crimes could bring with them neither glory nor
happiness.
The Portuguese as cruel as the Spaniards were not more
fortunate. Their immense discoveries in Asia gave them
only a moment of splendour and of force to make them feel
a little later their weakness and their obscurity. Conquests
whose sole motive is greed for riches produce no glory. I
1 It was in this cruel position that Guatimozin said to his minister, who

suffered the same torment and from whom the pain drew forth groans, these
words which show a great soul: "And I, am I on a bed of roses?"

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 Depopulation of Spanish Colonies 357

have mentioned how the Portuguese had been driven to

seek a new route to the Indies; the one which Venice formerly
followed was entirely obstructed by the successes of the
Ottomans. Mter having passed the equinoctial line and
observed the stars of the Austral pole, they cleared at last
the Cape of Storms which they named Cape of Good Hope.
Commanded by Vasco de Gama and by Alphonse d'Albu-
querque they fought successively the kings of Calcutta,
Ormus, Siam, and defeated the fleet of the Soudan of Egypt.
They captured the city of Goa and soon after took possession
of Malacca, Aden, and Ormus. They established them-
selves all along the shores of the island of Ceylon, pushed
their colonies into Bengal, trafficked in all the Indian archi-
pelago, and founded the city of Macao on the frontiers of
China. In less than fifty years they discovered more than
five thousand leagues of coast, were the masters of commerce
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ethiopian Sea, and traded
in everything useful, rare, pleasing, and brilliant which
terrestrial nature produces. They overthrew the fortunes
of Venice by spreading throughout Europe at much cheaper
cost all necessary or precious objects and eclipsed the glory
of that emporocratic aristocracy, whose power was anni-
hilated forever. The route from the Tagus to the Ganges
became frequented, and the discovery of Japan seemed to
be the climax of the grandeur of Portugal. All this occurred
in the first half of the sixteenth century.
These discoveries, these conquests made in both hemi..
spheres, the immense riches which they procured, far from
enriching the Spaniards and the Portuguese, finally im-
poverished them; for in exploiting at a distance mines of

It is a remarkable thing that the famous Italian poet, Dante, had spoken
more than a century before of these stars which rule over this pole: "I turned
to the right," he said in the First Canto of his Purgatory, "and observing the
other pole, I saw four stars, which have been known only in the first ages of
the world." That is to say, at the epoch when the Austral pole dominated
the horizon, before the disaster of Atlantis.

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358 Hermeneutic Interpretation
gold and silver, going in search of diamonds and pearls,
they neglected the real mines and the real treasures of
industry which are agriculture and the work of the manu-
facturer. The colonies of Asia, those of Mexico, Peru, and
Brazil had depopulated the Spanish; so that after the death
of Sebastian and that of the old cardinal-who had succeeded
to the throne of Portugal when this kingdom fell into the
hands of Philip II., King of Spain, at the close of the six-
teenth century, making the monarch apparently the most
powerful of the globe, since he dominated the two hemi-
spheres and as the sun, according to his haughty expression,
never set upon his states--one can see that this grandeur
was illusory and had never been raised for him; this is what
I wish to have clearly understood. It was by no means the
grandeur of Spain that the Will of Man had in view in the
movement which it had aroused there. This became, I
think, quite obvious when in the coincident movement in
morals, operated in Germany by means of Luther, one saw
several miserable revolted provinces resisting this formidable
colossus and consolidating their revolt by an emporocratic
confederation which braved all his efforts. Holland, thus
constituted, took possession of all the conquests of the Por-
tuguese with a remarkable facility. England, a short time
after having entered the same movement, dominated Spain
after having resisted her, and threw into septentrional
America a germ of emporocracy destined to invade the
whole hemisphere, reacting sharply upon her mother coun-
try and menacing Europe with a complete upheaval. Thus
the Will of Man, succeeding in the depths of his designs,
escaped from Destiny which thought to have crushed it
and always indomitable prepared itself for new combats.

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 CHAPTER X

SCHISM: OF LUTHER-HOW CHARLES V. WAS ABLE TO ARREST IT

ALLnations
those who have written the history of modem
have been struck by the grand spectacle
which Europe presented at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, but no one has thought to explain why this great
spectacle ended everywhere in catastrophes. The new
world, it is true, was discovered and conquered, but it was
devastated. The old continent saw extraordinary men
born in nearly all the races, but these men disturbed it
instead of strengthening it and inflamed it instead of en-
lightening it. Italy gloried in .Leo X ., and this sovereign
pontiff saw a formidable schism created under his pontifi-
cate, which rent the Christian Church. Charles V. and
Francis I. were great princes; they brought only misfortune
to the states which they had governed. Luther and Calvin
were men of genius; their genius produced only calamitous
divisions, wars, massacres, and persecutions. Whence came
this contradiction? From the constant struggles between
Will and Destiny, Liberty and Necessity, in the absence of
Providence which neither of the two would recognize.
Before Columbus had discovered the New World, the
possibility of its discovery was not believed; the existence
of this New World was denied; those who admitted it were
anathematized. Before Luther had drawn half of Europe
into his schism, such a revolution seemed so improbable
359

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36o Hermeneutic Interpretation
that his predictions were mocked; he was not even considered
worthy of the stake where Savanarola, John Huss, Jerome
of Prague, Arnold of Brescia, and many others, had perished.
Pope Leo X., who had just been raised to the pontificate at
the age of thirty-six, promised a magnificent reign to Europe;
a descendant of the Medicis of Florence, he had all their
virtues and all their faults; he protected artists and savants;
he was a generous, noble, sincere friend; he could be an
accomplished prince; but he did not believe in the dogmas
of his cult and therefore was a bad pontiff. His magnificence
was the pretext rather than the cause of the schism; he
wished to finish the Basilica of St. Peter commenced by
Julius II. and not having enough money for this expense,
he imagined that he could put a tax upon the consciences and
sell indulgences throughout Christendom as had been done
already. He could have done much better no doubt had
he taken a more honest course and said openly to the Chris-
tians that their sovereign pontiff, being in need of a certain
sum to raise a magnificent palace to the Prince of the Apostles,
asked of each one a slight contribution; but this course
would have been contrary to the spirit of a cult which
preached humility. One might say, What is the use of rais-
ing a palace to Cephas the poor fisherman? It was neces-
sary to find an expedient and adopt a ruse according to the
method of the Court of Rome forced by her position to be
always in contradiction to herself. This ruse, which at any
other time would not even have been perceived, or having
been, would have passed as a mere trifle, was considered
an enormous crime and treated with unparalleled severity.
It is true that John Huss and particularly Wyclif had
prepared the minds for this insult; the Hussites in Bohemia
and the Lollards in England were heard declaiming against
the authority of the popes, declaring that neither patriarchs,
nor archbishops, nor bishops should have after the Evangel-
ist any pre-eminence overotherpriestsor any different power;
that the riches which they possessed were usurpations of

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 Religious Schisms
which justice wished that they should be deprived; that
kings owed nothing to the holy seat and that the holy seat
could exercise no jurisdiction over them or their kingdoms;
as to the dogmas, that it was certain that the substance of
the bread and wine remained after the consecration and that
the body of Jesus Christ is in this substance only as the fire
is in the red-hot iron; both exist together without any tran-
substantiation from the iron by the fire.
Luther then in preaching this doctrine said nothing
new. In attacking the authority of the popes, the forms of
worship, the monastic vows, the integrity of the dogmas,
he only repeated what others had said before him, but he
repeated it under very different conditions. It was not
he who created the movement, it was the movement which
created him. Note well this decisive point, judicious reader,
and you will realize for the first time, perhaps, that which
happens so often, when a very ordinary man succeeds where
superior men lose. Luther was assuredly not worth as
much as John Russ or Jerome of Prague. He had neither
the austere virtue of the former nor the remarkable talents
of the latter. He was a man of passionate character,
ardent, of a genius somewhat elevated, but without dignity;
speaking with enthusiasm, but writing without method and
without talent, and this shows that he felt keenly and thought
with difficulty. He caused strong emotion, but minds were
already stirred. He himself was astonished at the effects
he produced. How many times, thinking he had gone too
far, would he not have liked to stop! But once launched on
the career, there was no time to reflect upon the consequences.
All the fruit which he drew from his internal combats was
great mental fatigue, which he attributed afterwards to
the infernal spirit.
As early as the year 1516 and before the publication of
It is said that Jerome of Prague displayed before the Council of Constance,
where he was condemned with his friend John Huss, an eloquence unknown
at that time. He spoke like Socrates and died with the same firmness.

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the indulgences in Germany, Luther had announced his
opinions as conforming with those of John Russ; this publi-
cation only served him as a pretext to spread them with more
eclat. In the meantime Leo X., indifferent to the attacks
of this obscure monk whom he regarded as an ignorant
and harmless fanatic, scorned his predictions, continued
his works, and turned away his eyes from the too manifest
scandal which the sacerdotal body caused by the luxury
which it displayed and the indolence into which it was
fallen. Only a violent revolution could give him back a
little of his energy. Luther provokes this revolution.
Supported by the protection of Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 1
he goes ahead; he makes the crimes of Alexander Borgia and
the fits of passion of Julius II. fall upon the prodigalities
and pleasures of Leo de' Medici. The Pope condemns him
and summons him to the next council; the Pope anathe-
matizes him; he retaliates by publicly burning the bull of
excommunication at Wittenberg. From that time Luther
becomes a powerful and formidable man; his maxims spread.
Zwingli, cure of Zurich in Switzerland, adopts them and
deduces from them new results. He changes entirely the
forms of worship, abolishes the offering of Mass, and no
longer sees in the sacrament of the Eucharist anything but
a commemorative ceremony. The Senate of Zurich as-
sembles and declares itself for reform. Berne does the same.
Soon the majority of Switzerland is influenced and joins
Saxony, Wittenberg, and other parts of Germany, already
schismatical.
Emperor Charles V. summons Luther to come to give
account of his conduct, in his presence, at the Imperial Diet
of Worms. Luther dares to expose himself to the fate of
John Huss; he obeys; provided with a similar safe-conduct
but more valid, because Charles V. had not the pusillanimity
of Sigismund and besides the diet was not a council; it could
This prince in competition with Charles V. and Francis I. had been elected
Emperor and had refused this dignity.

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 Imperial Diet of Worms
only judge arch-heretics under purely political relations.
Luther, condemned under these relations, continues none
the less his movement. Docile to the Will which guides
him, he adheres, notwithstanding the Emperor and the Diet,
to the ideas of Zwingli regarding the inutility of the Mass;
he abolishes it, as well as exorcism; denies the existence of
purgatory and the necessity of confession, absolution, and
indulgences; opens the cloisters; releases the monks and
nuns from their vows, and himself sets the example of mar-
riage of priests, by marrying a nun. What greater triumph
could the Will of Man have gained over Destiny!
In the midst of all this the Pope dies. The circumstance
was admirable for Charles. It was said that his predecessor
Maximilian had had the intention of joining the tiara to the
imperial crown; this was not a good thing, even if it bad
succeeded, for nothing could prevent the changing of the
forms of papacy. A man whose genius had not been medi-
ocre would have felt it easily. He would have seen in the
state of things that there was no other means of annihilating
the schism which was staining with blood and destroying
the Church than in sanctioning it. He should have called
Luther to the supreme priesthood. The stroke would have
been bold; the only one that could have saved Europe from
the peril that menaced her. Luther becoming Pope would
have been capable of submitting the Will of Man to the yoke
of Providence and I am sure that he would have done it.
Up to that point he would only have been led, then his
inspiration would have commenced. Charles in recognizing
him would have been recognized by it and the Universal Em-
pire would have dated from his reign. The Turk, scarcely
entered Europe, would have been driven out; Jerusalem
would have been conquered and the Old as well as the New
World would have seen in this city a holy city towards
which all the people of the universe would have turned
themselves in prayer.
Charles felt nothing of all this. Yielding to his petty

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interests, he raised to the pontifical throne his preceptor,
under the name of Adrian VI., an upright man, but weak,
incapable of sustaining a burden such as that which fell
upon his head. This Adrian was followed by Clement VII.,
Julius de' Medici who, possessing all the faults of his family,
without any of its virtues, succeeded through a misplaced
pride and an ill-timed obstinacy in exasperating the schism
and delivering Europe to the dissensions which awaited it.

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 CHAPTER XI

CONSEQUENCES OF mE SCHISM OF LUmER-ANABAPTISTS-

LEGISLATION OF CALVIN AT GENEVA

L UTHER considered as a reformer of the cult by the

incapacity of Charles V. who neither knew how to
generalize its form nor to arrest it; an audacious innovator
because he could not be anything more, and apostle of the
Will when he was not permitted to be that of Providence;
Luther knew at least his position and profited by the circum-
stances as an able man. He gave three terrible blows to
Destiny, which have not been sufficiently noticed because
historians, though exact enough in relating effects, almost
never go back to causes. Christian monk, he released
himself from his vows and publicly married a nun; he ap-
proved of the divorce of Henry VIII., King of England, from
Catherine of Aragon, and permitted polygamy to the Land-
grave of Hesse. It was breaking boldly the most austere
part of the Christian cult and was submitting without re-
striction Necessity to Liberty. The divorce of Henry VIII.,
opposed by Pope Clement VII., who recognized neither men
nor times, brought about several very grave consequences;
the first was to render all alliance between Spain and Eng-
land impossible, which made France secure for a long time,
prevented her usurpation by Philip II. at the time of the
League, and permitted Henry IV. to ascend the throne;
the second produced the reign of Elizabeth, who came after
365

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the disastrous reign of Mary, giving to England an extra-
ordinary impetus which might have led this kingdom to the
highest destinies, if a fatal event had not disturbed its
course. This event which I am going to indicate, although
it may invert a little the order of time, was the legal murder
of Mary Stuart. This murder, which stained the life of
Elizabeth, brought about an effect wholly contrary to that
which that princess, blinded by jealousy and pride, intended.
Instead of strengthening the royal authority, as she believed
it would, it shook it in its most sacred foundations and gave
to the Will of Man all that of which she thought she was
depriving it, by her fleeting despotism. England learned,
by the forms which were followed in that execrable regicide,
that crowned heads could fall by the sword of justice and
that the people had a right to this sword. The murder of
Anne Boleyn and that of the other wives of Henry VIII.
must not be confused with that of Mary Stuart. These
crimes, although similar in their results, do not at all re-
semble each other in principle. Henry was a savage tyrant
who assassinated his wives if they were innocent, or who
punished them in an atrocious manner if they were guilty.
The crime weighed upon him alone; but Elizabeth had no
right over Mary, a queen her equal and queen of another
kingdom. It was not she who put her to death; she caused
her to be put to death by her own people, to whom she gave
this unhappy princess, recognizing in this people a right com-
petent to judge her. Now, if the English people, according
to Elizabeth, had the right to judge a queen of Scotland and
to condemn her to death, all the more right should they
have to judge a king or queen of England and to send either
to the scaffold. They would have been able to execute
this fatal right upon Elizabeth herself, if the conditions
had permitted them to do it. They were not long in making
use of it when, about sixty years after, the unfortunate
Charles I., delivered to the mercy of a fanatical and sedi-
tious populace, was sacrificed to the ambition of Cromwell

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 Concessions of Luther
by a regicide parliament. It was to the crime of Elizabeth
that this monarch owed his death, and this crime, which
was the work of royalty, could only have a like result; for,
in order that royalty might be legitimately subjected to
the sentence of the people, it was necessary for royalty to
wish it, otherwise this would have been impossible.
To return from this digression: look at the principal con-
sequences which the divorce of Henry VIII. brought about;
they were, on the one hand, the security of the grandeur
of France under the reigns of Henry IV. and Louis XIV.,
and, on the other, the glory and sovereignty of the English
people and the evils of which this sovereignty was the source-
evils which should be imputed chiefly to the character of
Elizabeth, as I have said.
As to the consequences which 'followed the permission
accorded by Luther to the Landgrave of Hesse to take two
wives, they were likewise important. The princes of the
North, but little attached to the pontifical power of Rome
whose rigour seemed to grow in proportion as it became
distant from the centre, saw with pleasure an occasion arise
for throwing off the yoke. They and their people, notwith-
standing their conversion to Christianity, retained in the
depths of their hearts a secret leaven of the cult of Odin. 1
The concessions of Luther and the spirit of liberty which
were the basis of his doctrine pleased them singularly.
They found therein something of their ancient ideas and
they united willingly. They protested therefore against
the decisions of the different diets which had condemned
Luther and his adherents 2 and formed at Smalcald that
1 The cult of Odin existed for a long time in the North and was not entirely

extinguished until the death of Sweyn, the last King of Denmark who professed
it, at the beginning of the eleventh century.
It is on account of this protestation that the followers of Luther have
been named Protestants. The name of Huguenots came to them from the
corruption of the German word Eingenossen, which signifies the United. This
name was given them on account of their reunion at Smalcald. Charles V.
having convoked a new Diet at Augsburg received there from the confederate

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famous league which consolidated the schism and made a
political body of the different members of which it was
composed. It was not until after this league and in pro-
portion as they entered it that the powers of the North
commenced to have weight in the political system of Europe.
Even Sweden, separated from Denmark by the valour of
Gustavus Vasa, showed herself formidable sometime after,
dominated the Empire of Germany during the reign of
Gustavus Adolphus, and during that of Charles XII. balanced
the power of the Czars of Russia. It is well known how the
Swedish monarch, notwithstanding the genius of his rival
Peter I., called in question one time whether the Russian
Empire would be founded. Denmark after having escaped
from the tyranny of Christian II. formed a reputable state.
Saxony, Hesse, Hanover, Brandenburg, raised to the rank
of kingdom with Prussia, exercised in turn a remarkable
influence. Holland, after having thrown off the yoke of
the Spaniards, dominated the seas, obtained possession of
the power of the Portuguese in Asia, and gained the commerce
of the world. England given over at first to violent con-
vulsions, being victorious, seized the preponderance which
her position and her relative force had necessarily given to
her, and dominating the two hemispheres made them equally
tributary to her vast marine. Switzerland even did not
remain without some eclat, on account of Geneva, which
made herself one of the mother cities of reform.
Finally, such having been the success of the doctrine of
Luther, that before the death of this arch-heretic, in 1546,
and in less than thirty years, more than half of Europe
previously Catholic submitted to it. The other half, be-
ginning to give way, would infallibly have followed in the
same course, and thenceforth the Will of Man triumphant
over that part of the world would have brought about a
princes a profession of faith, drawn up by Melanchthon, disciple of Luther;
this profession of faith, called the Confession of A Uisburg, contained the
principal points of their doctrine.

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 Zwingli, Carlstadt and Munzer 369
moment of absolute liberty; that political phantom after
which it ran unceasingly without ever attaining it. But it
is the essence of this Will to become divided at the moment
when Providence unappreciated abandons it. If this were
not so, that is, if it could preserve its unity of movement,
in using itself as a point of support, it would triumph always;
for it is irrefragable in its nature and nothing in the universe
can resist its action. Now if this action is perverse, ought
it to endanger the universe? No; the Divine Decree which
has endowed this Will with this irresistible action has willed
it to exist only in its unity and its unity to subsist only in
the good, or what is the same thing, in providential harmony.
As soon as this harmony is broken, unity is destroyed, the
action is divided, and the Will of Man, opposed to itself,
combats and devours itself.
Luther could have been a providential man, but in order
to be that he should have recognized himself as the instru-
ment of Providence, so that Providence might be recognized
in him; but if he considered himself only as a reformer of
the cult, and one was accustomed to consider his reform and
not him, and in his reform, that which conformed more or
less to the prevailing ideas, so that in adopting the reform
of Luther it was not Luther that one adopted as chief or
regulator of this reform, but only as primal cause of a move-
ment of which each one appropriated himself the centre,
reserving for himself the power of spreading or limiting the
circumference according to his particular inspiration; in
agreeing, nevertheless, about certain bases, of which the
principal was, that one ought to recognize only the Holy
Scriptures as the rule of faith: thus there would be, properly
speaking, in the new cult no chief invested with any spiritual
power. Everyone with the Bible or the Gospel in hand
could dogmatize at his will.
In the states which embraced this cult, the temporal
sovereigns were declared chiefs; and without any apostolic
mission, without any right to the sovereign pontificate, acted
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as sovereign pontiffs in all that which had relation to the
discipline of the Church. Europe saw with astonishment,
particularly in England, women exercising the rights of the
papacy and presumptuously assuming a calamitous influence
upon the priesthood r; which was assuredly most contrary
to the spirit of Christianity.
This lack of unity, which was noticeable from the birth
of the reform, would presage that the consequences would
be stormy; they were, indeed, more than one could ever
imagine. Hardly had Luther begun his predictions, when
Zwingli appeared in Switzerland and drew new consequences
from his doctrine; war was kindled among the cantons; it
continued with different success. Zwingli was killed there.
The cantons, justly fatigued with their dissensions, put
down their arms, and each agreed to keep the doctrine which
suited them and to tolerate each other. Before this time
two men named Carlstadt and Munzer, ignorant and fanat-
ical enthusiasts, trained in the teachings of Luther and
outdoing the ideas of this reformer, declared themselves
inspired to finish what had been only roughly outlined. It
was necessary according to them to renew the edifice of
Christianity from its foundations and to rebaptize all
children. Under the name of Anabaptists, they committed
frightful ravages; they filled the minds with a sort of relig-
ious intoxication which roused them to delirium; each of
their followers believed himself to be inspired by the Holy
Spirit and took for certain knowledge, for sacred orders,
dreams of their bewildered imagination. One who believed
that he was ordered to kill his brother came from remote
parts of Germany to Paris or Rome and murdered him.
Another understood the Spirit to tell him to hang himself
and he did so. A lover killed his mistress; a friend sacrificed
his friend. Allegorical histories were received as affirmed
Bodin said amusingly on this subject on returning from England that
he had seen in this cotintry a most extraordinary thing. When asked what,
he replied: "I have seen a chief of the Reformed Church dancing."

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 Calvin 371
facts; one spoke only of imitating Abraham who sacrificed
his son; Jephtha who sacrificed his daughter; Judith who
beheaded Holophemes. Germany fell into a frightful
confusion. People were obliged to combat these madmen
and surround them as ferocious beasts. They were shut
up in MUn.ster, where one of the most audacious, Jean de
Leyde, had himself recognized as king. Blood flowed in
torrents. Wherever they were found, they were extermi-
nated. Miinzer perished on the scaffold at Mtilhausen
with his disciple Pfeiffer. Jean de Leyde, seized in MUn.ster,
was tom with red-hot pincers. They returned fury for fury.
During this time Calvin appeared; Calvin, of hard and
austere character, of melancholy disposition, without re-
cognizing either Luther, Miinzer, Zwingli, Melanchthon, or
JEcolampade, or any of their adherents, traced a new course
in the midst of the reform. He renounced the vague and
loose system of Luther, blamed his concessions to the sover-
eigns, his attachment to things temporal, and, withdrawing
also from the frenzy of the Anabaptists, who standing up
as their own masters wished neither priests nor magistrates,
announced openly his intention of attaching the evangelical
doctrine to the republican forms. Geneva, which had at
first rejected his propositions, finally accepted them.
Geneva had been at first aD imperial city in which the
bishop had usurped the authority as in Cologne, Mayence,
Lyons, Rheims, etc. This bishop had afterwards yielded
a part of his authority to the Duke of Savoy. The Genevans
attacked the validity of this transfer and revolted against
the Savoyards, drove out their Catholic bishop, and named
Calvin their legislator. Calvin lacked neither force nor
talent; he wrote better than Luther, although he spoke
with less facility. His legislation bore the impress of his
character: it had firmness without grandeur and regularity
without any sort of elegance. Its customs were wise but
melancholy; the laws just but hard. The fine arts were
banished. For more than a century not a single musical

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instrument was heard in Geneva. Games, plays, all the
pleasant arts were regarded as impious and sciences even as
corruptible. Mercantile industry on the one hand, religious
quibble on the other usurped all the faculties. This was
an emporocratic theocracy. Geneva was, properly speak-
ing, a convent of merchants, as Sparta had been a convent
of warriors. Lycurgus and Calvin were not wanting in
traits of resemblance; but Lycurgus, weapon in hand, de-
livered no one to the edge of the sword, and Calvin, leaning
over the Gospel, declared heretic by the Catholic Church
with which he had broken, caused his friend Servetus whom
he himself accused of heresy to be lawfully burned, according
to confidential letters which the latter had written to him.
What more terrible abuse of the Will momentarily united
to Destiny!
This was the remarkable school whence came a man
endowed with a rare sensibility, a decided inclination towards
fine arts, musician, novelist, writer of the greatest distinc-
tion who, imbued from the cradle with ideas entirely opposed
to his inclination, was placed by his strange paradoxes in a
perpetual contradiction with himself, anathematized arts
and sciences, proclaimed the sovereignty of the people,
cosmopolitan by spirit, and Genevan by instinct, believed
he was making everything harmonious by generalizing
Geneva in the universe. That this man should have be-
lieved what he said to be good is only very natural; but
that the greater part of Europe should have believed it, this
requires attention. To reach that point Rousseau had to
be the interpreter of a power which made him move without
his knowledge and which will become more and more evident
in what I still have to say.

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 CHAPTER XII

RECAPITULATION

I HAVE advanced slowly in this last book and I have

lingered over details more than in any other. This was
necessary. My work can be considered as a vast picture
which I unroll before my readers, while explaining the subject
and distinguishing the effects and groups. I began first with
vapoury bases and heights almost lost in the shadows. The
features were but dimly traced at that time, the forms un-
certain, and the daylight and darkness equally faint; but as
we passed from one plane to another, the colours acquired
more strength and the personages became more striking;
more space was necessary to contain less, because we saw
them nearer and the perspective did not permit representing
them further en masse. We have now arrived at the first
draft. I shall be obliged to suppress many details in
order not to prolong my discourse and not to overstep the
limits which I have prescribed for myself.

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 SIXTH BOOK

In the last book we have examined anew many subjects

which we had already seen, so as to appreciate better their
relations with those which were to follow. It was important
to consider with attention the double movement which
operated afterwards and the two great events which resulted
from it: the discovery of America and the schism of Luther.
We will continue now our historical inquiry to arrive at
last at the application of the principles which we have
received.

375

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 CHAPTER I

INVENTION OF GUNPOWDER AND THE ART OF PRINTING-

CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF THESE TWO INVENTIONS-FINE
ART5-USEFUL ARTS-cOMMODITIES OF LIFE

AT ing,
the time when the two great movements were operat-
the principal circumstances of which I have related
many important things co-operated in giving to the Will
which had provoked them the necessary means of drawing
all the advantages which were promised from them. Among
these means are two especially, which having exercised a
great influence upon the human mind and upon the destinies
of the world, merit particular attention: these are the inven-
tion of gunpowder and that of printing. These two inven-
tions which preceded a little the discovery of America and
the schism of Luther were destined to second these two
movements, which without them would have experienced
many greater difficulties. They acted strongly upon the
constitution and upon the morals of society and changed
in a short time all the military and civil habits. 1
The invention of gunpowder is attributed to a monk named Berthold
Schwartz, native of Freiburg in Germany, who, it is said, found this fulminating
composition by mixing together sulphur, saltpetre, and mercury, while search-
ing for the golden powder of Hermes. The art of printing was invented shortly
after this time, at Mayence, by Gutenberg, Fust, and Schaeffer, a clerk or
servant of Fust who accomplished it by designing movable letters and ink
suitable for printing. They tried to stop the effect of these two inventions
by considering them as the work of the Devil and by denouncing their inven-
tors as sorcerers. Schwartz was put in prison; Fust and Schaeffer were cruelly
persecuted; but fortunately the accusation of magic against them had no result.
377

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378 Hermeneutic Interpretation
By means of gunpowder, firearms were easily invented;
the invention of artillery and musketry made all men equal
in combat by depriving the ancient knights of defensive
armour. Infantry hitherto scorned became formidable,
and the cavalry could no longer massacre them with im-
punity.~ Knighthood, rendered useless by this invention,
gradually lost its importance and soon disappeared entirely,
at least in substance, for as to form it existed as it exists
still as an honorary institution. The feudal system already
shaken found in the new weapons and in the military tactics
which they called forth, an obstacle insurmountable for its
consolidation. These weapons, terrible in the hands of all
men, effaced the differences of individual strength and of
armour and gave an irresistible ascendancy to the talent of
the general and to the real valour of the soldier. Thus was
the Will armed.
The art of printing in multiplying the copies of intellec-
tual works spread instruction throughout all classes of
society and gave to thought an impetus which it had never
before known. Intellectual knowledge was rapidly pro-
pagated. Men found themselves in a sort of spiritual com-
munion, due to this wonderful invention which permitted
them to share one another's ideas. Political affairs and
events which, in particular or in general, might interest
society were more easily divulged. The real condition of
things could be much less imposed upon. Ignorance was

1 The battle of Bouvines, won by Philip Augustus in 1215, furnished proof

that knights fully armed were inwlnerable. It is related that the King of
France having been thrown from his horse was for a long time surrounded by
enemies and received blows from all kinds of weapons without losing a drop
of blood. While lying on the ground, a German soldier tried to thrust a
doubled-barbed javelin into him but did not succeed. Not a knight perished
in the battle, except Guillaume de Longschamp, who unfortunately died from
a blow in the eye, directed at the visor of his helmet. Emperor Otho lost
the battle. It is said that thirty thousand Germans died in it; they were
without doubt the infantry, whose armour was neither as complete nor as
finely tempered as that of the knights.

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 Umbrian Troubadours Driven Out 379

no longer a forced state. Public opinion was fonned and

this opinion became one of the most powerful resources of
public life. Thus was the Will enlightened.
Fireanns contributed powerfully to the success of the
Portuguese in Asia and of the Spaniards in America. It was
only with terror that the weak Americans could face these
men, whom they saw possessors of lightning, hurling death
from enormous distances. Printing gave to the followers of
Luther a power which they never would have obtained with-
out it; it made clear their real intentions, destroyed the
calumnies which might be fabricated against them, and
reaching the masses at great distance, showed from its
beginning what a powerful lever this wonderful invention
furnished to move them. Its action was the stronger at this
time, as people possessed few books and were not surrounded
as in our day by a mass of ephemeral pages which absorb the
attention and encumber one with a heap of useless rubbish.
These two means were not the work of chance, as super-
ficial writers would have it understood; they were, on the
contrary, the fruit of a reflecting Will. This must not be
forgotten. Never, perhaps, had the human mind made so
great an effort. It was neither Destiny nor Providence
which brought them about; it was the Will of Man alone
to serve his passions. At the time when these things were
happening, the genius of Arts was awakened in Italy and in
Spain. 1 The Umbrian troubadours, driven from their native
Already since the thirteenth century the Venetians had found the secret
of crystal mirrors. Pottery had been invented in a town of Italy called Faenza.
A man called Alexander Spina had discovered the use of spectacles. In
general it was in Italy that industry made the greatest efforts. There were
aeen the first windmills and the first clocks with wheels. The clock of Bologna
was already famous in the thirteenth century. Flanders was next to Italy
the most industrious country of Europe. Bruges was the mart of all the mer-
chandise which passed by sea from the Mediterranean into the Baltic. It
was Edward III., King of England, who thought first to naturalize commerce
in this kingdom by bringing Flemish workmen there in 1326. The countries
of Europe where emporocracy has ruled have been successively Italy, the
Netherlands, and England.

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38o Hermeneutic Interpretation
land by the bloody Crusade of Simon de Montfort against
the Albigenses, were separated; and while one part crossed
the Alps, the other part crossed the Pyrenees. It was there
they had carried the knowledge of prosodic verses which
they improvised while singing and naturalized the rhymes
which they had learned from the Arabs. These poets had
also composed comedies which the Spaniards and Italians
have imitated. The English had a theatre some time after,
as well as the French, who inferior at first to the other nations
finally surpassed all.
Painting, sculpture, architecture, and music received
a very great impetus, especially in Italy. 1 The sixteenth
century saw many talents come to light. This was in
general the century of fine arts. The seventeenth was
that of erudition. In this century, copies of Greek and
Latin works were multiplied; they were studied, criti-
cized, and imitated as models, especially in France where
poesie rimee attained its highest degree of perfection under
Louis XIV.
The Spaniards who had given the tone to Europe during
the sixteenth century gave nothing more in the seventeenth.
It was the turn of the French who succeeded them, as they
themselves had succeeded the Italians. It was in this cen-
tury where delicacy and taste united with luxury to embellish
life and joined utility to magnificence. Until that time
only a luxury of ostentation devoid of comfort had been

Painting was reinvented in the thirteenth century by Cimabue, a

Florentine. He acquired such a great reputation that Charles I., King of
Naples, made him a visit. Giotto followed him. Some frescoes of Cimabue
remain which prove his genius and some pleasing paintings of Giotto. This
Giotto was a young herdsman whom Cimabue encountered in the fields guard-
ing his sheep and sketching them upon a brick while watching them graze.
The renovator of Greek architecture in these modem times was Brunelleschi
who built the dome of the cathedral of Florence in 1294- He was the first
who abandoned the Gothic style. The invention of paper made with crushed
linen dates from the beginning of the fourteenth century. A certain Pax
is said to have established a factory at Padua.

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 Luxuries Devoid of Comfort 381

known. 1 During the reign of Francis I., the father of arts

in France, one was destitute of the simplest commodities
of life. While this prince at Ardres received Henry VIII.,
King of England, under a tent of cloth of gold, he did not
have a coach for travelling as a shelter from the rain. The
only two coaches which he had then at Paris were for the
Queen and for Diane de Poitiers. A century later the court
of Henry IV. was scarcely better furnished. The greatest
nobles in these times travelled on horseback and when they
took their wives to the country, they took them on the
crupper, and they wore a cape of oilcloth if the season was
rainy. This condition of destitution increased as one ad-
vanced towards the north. In Russia, for example, it
was very rare to find a bed in the middle of the seventeenth
century. Everybody, even the greatest boyars themselves,
slept on boards; other things were in proportion.
In general, the efforts of the human mind, after those
which it had to make for the preservation of its existence
and that of the social state, equally compromised after the
invasion of the barbarians, had been directed towards the
ensemble of things. Before thinking of living well, one had
to think of living. It was not until the whole was assured
that they concerned themselves about details. The Italians
were occupied with the magnificence of the arts; the Span-
iards with the ostentation of luxury; the French dreamed of
the pleasures of life and perhaps of the enjoyments of vanity.
The century of Louis XIV. was a century eminently vain-
The luxury of these times consisted chiefly in one's retinue; bishops never
went out unless attended by a prodigious number of servants and horses.
This custom dated back to the ancient Celts. Even in the middle of the four-
teenth century nearly all the houses in the cities of France, Germany, and Eng
land were thatched. The use of chimneys was not yet known. A common
hearth was raised in the middle of the principal chamber and the roof was
pierced. Wme was rare even in Italy. Meat was only eaten in the largest
cities three times a week. The taper was unknown and 'the candle was a
great luxury. Light was made with the aid of pieces of dried wood. Private
houses were constructed from rough timber covered with a sort of mortar
called clay. The doors were low and the windows small, almost without light.

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glorious. If the letters of Madame de Sevigne have been
so much prized, it is because these letters offer a perfect
picture. The French of that time loved everything as
Madame de 8evigne loved her daughter.

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 CHAPTER II

INSTITUTION OF THE JESUITS: FOR WHAT END-WHO IGNATIUS

LOYOLA WAS-NEW REFLEC!IONS UPON THE CONDUcr
OF CHARLES vn.; UPON TIIAT OF FRANCIS I.; PHILIP II.,
KING OF SPAIN; AND HENRY IV., KING OF FRANCE-
ASSASSINATION OF THIS MONARCH

DURING these centuries, religion experienced diverse

vicissitudes. At first, it was divided, as I have said,
by the schism of Luther, and this schism which no one had
the force to consolidate was subdivided almost directly
from its birth. The Will of Man which had brought it to
light could not prevent the division, since this division re-
sulted from its essence which was liberty. But Destiny, as
if frightened by the peril to which it had just been exposed,
raised in orthodoxy a man of extraordinary force, inflexible
character, and capable of great devotion; this man was called
Ignatius Loyola. The Christian cult has not produced one
more devoted to its interests. As he was to be opposed to
Luther he was in every way his counterpart. Luther was
a German monk who broke his vows, who emerged from
the solitude of the cloister to enter the career of dissensions
and arms. Ignatius was a Spanish soldier who threw away
the sword to put on haircloth and left the guard-house to
enter the sanctuary. The former trained in the sciences
from his youth was eloquent and erudite. The latter, who
hardly knew how to read, who spoke badly, entered college
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384 Hermeneutic Interpretation
at the age of thirty-three, submitted to the duties like a
child, wished to receive corrections, and triumphing over
an unpromising nature made all his classes, took all his
degrees, and was finally received as Master of Arts of the
University of Paris about ten or twelve years after.' Hav-
ing attained this point he realized the project which he had
conceived of founding a Society of Savants devoted to the
instruction of youth, and continually occupying themselves
with the care of enlightening infidels and fighting heretics.
Ignatius added a fourth vow to those already in use: that
of obedience to the Pope. He renounced by the rule which
he established all ecclesiastical titles. Pope Paul III., to
whom he submitted his project, was exceedingly impressed 2 ;
he promulgated the bull of the institution with the express
condition that the members of this society, which was
called Society of Jesus, should never exceed sixty in number.
But it would have been in vain for the Pope to have tried
to restrain the zeal which brought to Ignatius a crowd of
followers, anticipating at a distance what importance this
new religious order which he had established could have in
the future. At the time of his death he had more than a
thousand Jesuits as his followers and without the least
political idea, without the least personal ambition, founded
the most political and most ambitious order which has ever
existed in Christianity. It had to be thus; the Spanish
soldier was only an instrument of Destiny, as the German
monk was of the Will. The one drew his force from neces-
sity and the other from liberty.
The reform of Luther not being generalized on account
of the mistake of Charles V., and the order of the Jesuits
having had time to gain strength, Europe was given over to
interminable dissensions; for the two parties had from that
time chiefs incapable of submitting to each other. During
1 In 1533.
It is related that after having read the project, he lifted up his bands and
cried with enthusiasm: Spirnus Domini est hie I " This is the spirit of God."

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 Society of Jesus
the bloody debates which these dissensions produced, and
of which France was principally the theatre on account of
the two parties in her midst, it was seen that Catholicism
had obtained the upper hand over the Reformation, which
came chiefly from the force of concentration which it opposed,
thanks to the Jesuits, to the sole enthusiasm of some sectari-
ans deprived of a sacerdotal chief, which tended always to
division. The conduct of Francis I. in the very beginning
of the schism appeared ridiculous and contradictory; it
could not be different, however, considering his false position.
All the evil came from a greater distance. It had its source
in the blind folly and ingratitude of Charles VII. If this
monarch had wished to recognize in the person of Joan of
Arc, Providence which revealed itself to save France, things
might have happened entirely different; he would have driven
the English from the continent. If he had not succumbed
to the terror which an unnatural son inspired in him, he
would not have died of hunger at the age of fifty-eight,
through fear of being poisoned; if his life had been prolonged
only fifteen or twenty years he would have saved France
from the calamitous reign of Louis XI.; the Flemish people
irritated by the tyranny of Louis would not in their turn
have tyrannized their young princess, Marie de Bourgogne,
to make her marry against all reason and all decency Maxi-
milian of Austria ; the quarrels between France and Austria
which this union caused would not have taken place. Charles
VIII., strong in his alliance with Marie, might have easily
kept his conquests in Italy; Louis XII., less pressed by cir-
cumstances, would not have been forced to approve of the
horrible perfidies of Oesar Borgia and bend before the
It was principally the inhabitants of Ghent who formed this alliance.
These insolent citizens caused the chancellor and the chamberlain of Marie,
who had negotiated for France, to be beheaded. Later they had the audacity
to put Maximilian, husband of their princess, in prison for having violated
their privileges in 1488. This people, imitating the Venetians, inclined already
to emporocracy, which Holland attained finally by sustaining the schism of
Luther.
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imperious genius of Julius II.; he would have been able with
all freedom to exercise the characteristics of kindness which
were befitting him for the good of France. Francis I., com-
ing to the throne under the most fortunate auspices, would
not have vainly competed with Charles of Austria for the
imperial crown; he would have obtained it at the outset and
France would thus have entered into all the rights of Charle-
magne. Mistress of the Netherlands and of entire Italy
nothing would have resisted her movements. Francis I. might
have displayed at ease that noble and magnificent genius with
which he was endowed. He would have seen what ought
to be done when Luther appeared and he would have done it.
The Christian cult would have been reformed without shock,
and Providence, seated upon the throne of Saint Peter,
would have led France to the Empire of the World.
But nothing of all this was done; the time which should
have been employed to bring forth wonders was not only
lost but was used to produce a thousand calamities. In
this state of affairs, Francis I. could not admit the reform
of Luther into his realm without losing it. He could not
dispose of the papacy as Charles V. could have done at the
death of Leo X., nor regulate a movement which in his
hands would have remained what it was, that is, schismatic.
Forced to persist in the Catholic communion, he was there-
fore obliged to let the Protestants be persecuted at home to
prevent them from submitting to the influence of England,
while he protected them outside so as to oppose the ambi-
tion of his rival. When it was fully decided that the em-
peror would not embrace the Reformation, Francis favoured
it still more. It was he who gave to Geneva the necessary
facilities to free herself and who let this city, bordering on
his states, become the capital of a sect which he needed.
Without this political stroke he was lost. Charles V. and
Henry VIII., King of England, being united notwithstand-
Consider, in support of all this, that the papal schism which existed then
favoured this event.

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 Francis Favours Reformation 387

ing the diversity of opinions, entered France. Already

Charles was at Soissons and Henry had taken Boulogne.
One trembled for Paris. The situation of Francis saved
him. The Protestant princes, whom he had protected,
united against the Emperor to force him to abandon his
conquests; the Catholic party all-powerful in France fur-
nished the King with necessary means to send off the English
by procuring for him the money that he needed.
Francis I., being dead, Charles V. still kept up the struggle
in which he had been engaged for ten years; but at last weary
of so many shocks, deceived in all his hopes, grown old before
his time, he let the helm, which he could no longer hold, fall
from his hands and abdicated the throne. 1 His brother Ferd-
inand I. became Emperor and his son Philip II. King of Spain.
Mter this no one approached the grandeur of Charles V.,
except Henry IV., Louis XIV., Charles XII. and Peter
the Great. It seemed that Spain, by the extent of her
states and the wealth of the New World, should have
dominated Europe. She did not even dominate Holland
which escaped her and which finally despoiled her of almost
everything that she possessed in the Indies. Philip II.,
having married Mary, Queen of England, wished to seize
the crown after the death of that princess; he had prepared
against this kingdom an armada which was called the Invin-
cible. He desired his daughter Eugenie to be recognized
as Queen of France and he himself to assume the title of
protector; he held Italy in his hand; he anticipated invading
Germany. From his cabinet he caused all the sovereigns
of the world to tremble. His fleet, joined to that of the Pope
and the Venetians, commanded by Don John of Austria
natural son of Charles V., had won the famous battle of
Lepanto over the Ottomans; he seemed at the height of his
power; but this was not so. The Invincible Armada which
he sent against England was beaten by the storms and

In 1558; he was then only fifty-eight years old.

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broken upon the rocks. The English ravaged his possessions
in America and, after having burned his galleons, threw ter-
ror into the city of Cadiz. France whom he had disturbed
for half a century during the weak or calamitous reigns of
the descendants of Francis I. came off victorious from all
the crises into which he had thrown her. The factions
which he excited in his midst, vying tore each other to pieces;
he caused a Thanksgiving to be offered at Madrid for the
execrable massacre which had taken place on St. Bartholo-
mew's day; he armed the hands of a king against his people
and turned the arms of. the people against their king; he
secretly sustained the ambition of the Guises, fomented
the League, and for a long time persecuted the King of Na-
varre, heir presumptive to the crown of France. Yet what
result did he obtain from so many efforts? Not any. His
power was eclipsed by the genius of Henry IV. who, by
going to Mass, made him lose in a half-hour the reward of
nearly forty years of labour.
One has often wondered if Henry IV. could have excused
himself for abandoning the Reformation which he had sus-
tained up to that time? No, he could not. If he could
have done so, Francis I. would have been able more justly
to embrace it. But to accomplish such a movement in
France, it was necessary to possess Italy and to have the
power to create a pope there. Henry IV. was not in this
position. This prince, poor and without arms, was banished
by the parlements, anathematized not only by the Sorbonne
but also by the priesthood, and rejected by the majority
of the nation. Political arms and those of superstition
were used against him. Besides, the Reformers supported
him badly, their zeal commenced to weaken. Henry IV.
had to abandon a weak and tottering will to enter the pro-
phetic career which opened before him. 1 If this monarch
Paris opened her gates to him in 1594; he strengthened his power in 1598,
by the peace of Vervins, forcing Philip II. to recognize him and to restore all
his cities which he still retained.

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 Ravaillac Assassinates Henry IV. 389
is compared with all the contemporaneous princes, it will
be seen that he was the greatest; but the conditions were
beyond him. More than fifty attempts were made upon
his life. Ravaillac, who accomplished the aim of his cruel
undertaking, was an arch-fanatic without direct accom-
plices, but inspired by a jealous faction, which, doubting
always the genius of this prince, had resolved upon his death.
Could Henry IV. have evaded it? Yes; his genius had
warned him of his danger; but the suspended blow would
not have remained less menacing. It was only in triumph-
ing over Italy that he might have assured his welfare, if
indeed he could have triumphed. He had in Sully an able
administrator, but who would have guided his armies under
his orders? The Catholics opposed his plans and theRe-
formers not only lacked force, but were not, in general,
inclined to serve him. At his death, in 1610, the European
Will lost all the hope that it had. This prince had been its
last resource to make France enter the religious movement
which it had agitated in Europe. Germany too divided,
and besides being respected by Austria, supported by Italy
and by Spain, and England too much isolated from the
continent, did not offer it a sufficient guarantee. Its atten-
tion was turned towards America, whose discovery it had
planned and it resolved to pass there through England,
concentrating at this point so as to be able to react upon
Europe when the time should come.

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 CHAPTER III

MOVEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN WILL TOWARDS AMERICA-

MEANS OF THIS MOVEMENT-REIGN OF JAMES I. OF ENG-
LAND--MISFORTUNE OF HIS SON, CHARLES I.-WHO
CROMWELL WAS-FOUNDATION OF THE SEer OF QUAKERS
BY FOX AND PENN-TRANSPLANTING OF THIS SECT TO
AMERICA

ALREADY the idea of transporting the Reformation to

America had been conceived by Admiral Coligny,
who, during the reign of Henry II., had made the attempt
in Brazil, where the Chevalier de Villegagnon had been sent.
Calvin himself was interested in the enterprise; but the
ministers whom he sent prevented it from succeeding.
They divided by their controversies and their ambition the
growing colony which was destroyed by the Portuguese.
Coligny did not lose courage and as if he had foreseen the
calamitous fate which awaited the Reformers some years
later, he made a fresh effort towards Florida; but the colony
which he sent there in 1564 was exterminated by the Span-
iards. France had not the impulse necessary for these ex-
peditions. Besides it was not the followers of Calvin that
were needed there. Predestination which the head of these
Reformers adopted and the rigid forms of his legislation sub-
mitted them too much to Destiny. It was among the most
vehement and most enthusiastic disciples of Luther and
among the Anabaptists that the European Will chose the
390

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 Tories and Whigs-Puritans 391

germ of liberty which it wished to propagate in the New

World. It is true that these Anabaptists, who at first be-
haved like madmen and were massacred everywhere they
were encountered, suddenly giving up their frenzies and
yielding to a new spirit, had become the most pacific of
men. It is from them that came not only the Herrnhuters
or Moravian Brothers, but also the Quakers or United Breth-
ren. The latter had their principal centre in England,
but they urged their people to settle in the old and new
continents.
The English were already established in North America,
and had formed several colonies there, when James I.
succeeded Queen Elizabeth and brought to the throne the
spirit of controversy with which he was filled. An unfor-
tunate event, the Gunpowder Plot, incensed him violently
against the Catholic party; this party was accused of having
conceived the culpable plot of blowing up the House of Par-
liament with all the members of its assembly and the king
himself. This angry prince began persecutions which dis-
pleased the Protestants more than the Catholics themselves,
by the arbitrary way in which he carried them out. The
prerogatives with which he wished to strengthen the royal
power and the concessions which he forced from Parliament
dissatisfied this body and caused two new opposed factions
to spring up in the nation-the Tories and the Whigs-
the former attached to the interests of the king and the
latter to those of the people. In the midst of these dissen-
sions, excited minds were ready to embrace the most exag-
gerated ideas. It was at this moment that the Anabaptists
exerted their influence. They first appeared under the
name of Puritans and concealed their republican ideas under
a sort of religious austerity. James died with the reputa-
tion of an adroit controversialist and a weak monarch. His
son, Charles I., who succeeded him, appeared to ascend
the throne under favourable conditions, whereas, on the
contrary, it was under eminently difficult conditions. The

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392 Hermeneutic Interpretation
parties formed by his father were keenly opposed and only
awaited the occasion to burst into open antagonism. This
occasion was offered in the person of Strafford, viceroy of
Ireland, who displeased the Whigs and whose death the
House of Commons demanded. His only crime was in
having served his master too well. Charles, instead of sup-
porting his minister and dissolving the factious assembly
which tried to dictate to him, thought he was yielding to a
cruel necessity; he had the weakness to sign the death war-
rant of a zealous servant who had aided him with his own
fortune; but it was to a rebellious will that he yielded and
this death warrant was the forerunner of his own. Puri-
tanism had made progress in Ireland and already some
Quakers appeared there. Whether the manners of these
Reformers, still more unusual than those of all the others,
displeased the Catholics more or whether the spirit of the
party had exasperated them more there than elsewhere,
the Catholics, unable to arm themselves openly against their
antagonists, meditated an atrocious crime and assassinated
them. It is estimated that about forty thousand of them
were massacred. The news of this horrible outrage roused
England. Charles was accused of having provoked these
murders, and the indignant nation armed itself against him.
This prince was no doubt innocent, but the people incapable
of reflecting were influenced by a blind .delirium. Parlia-
ment having become the instrument of an irresistible Will
forced the king to leave London. He had recourse to force
and force betrayed him. A man endowed with extraordi-
nary talents and as politic as warlike, enthusiastic and cold,
prudent and capable of any undertaking, Cromwell rose
from the ranks of the humblest citizens and mounted in an
instant to the highest rank in the State. He appealed to
the imagination of the people, took possession of the army,
and commanded both. The troops of the king were beaten
and his followers were powerless. The English Parliament
encouraged by success showed no further moderation; it

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 Rise of Cromwell 393
allied itself to that of Scotland by a solemn act which pro-
claimed all the principles of the republic. The unfortunate
Charles who had believed to find a refuge in Scotland was
seized there and delivered to the English parliamentarians.
His misfortune seemed to touch them for a moment. The
sombre and savage austerity of these Puritans was about to
yield to the illusion of royalty, which all the furies of the
civil war had not yet dissipated. Cromwell saw it; he
broke up Parliament, too little submissive to his orders, and
summoned another in which the parliamentary army domi-
nated. Master then of the three kingdoms, he seized the
monarch and brought him before Parliament which prose-
cuted him. The fatal example given by Elizabeth was
followed and the blood of the unfortunate Stuart family
for the second time flowed upon the scaffold. 1
The fatal blow which caused the head of a king to fall
beneath the edge of the popular axe resounded throughout
Europe and did not strike it with horror; the monarchs were
absorbed in petty intrigues of the cabinet and petty wars.
Did they even see in what such an event could end? No,
they did not see it. They only saw in the blood-stained
tomb of the King of England an assassinated prince; they
did not see that royalty, sacrificed to the sovereignty of the
people, was buried there with him.
I make here the same reflection that I made with regard
to Elizabeth. If Cromwell himself had sacrificed his sover-
eign, the crime would have been his; it would have been an
individual outrage which would not have attacked the
universality of things and which above all would not have
delivered one power to another; but Cromwell did not assas-
sinate the king any more than Elizabeth assassinated Mary.
The crime was committed for them but not by them. The
consequences were indeed different and much more
terrible.
The House of Stuart reigned over Scotland from 1370. Never has a race
been more unfortunate. Nearly all the scions died a violent death.

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394 Hermeneutic Interpretation
But, after all, Cromwell, all-powerful as he appeared to
be, all-protector of the whole kingdom as he was called, was
only an instrument determined by an invisible power to
serve a movement which it imparted. The real head of
this movement was a shoemaker of Drayton called George
Fox, a simple, ignorant man, but endowed with a great
force of exaltation and tenacity in his ideas. Scarcely was
royalty destroyed in England and the republic proclaimed
when he emerged from his shop and poured forth his opinions.
Cromwell while listening felt that he had a master; he had
him arrested and forbade his followers to hold any meetings;
but all his power failed. That terrible hand which had
shaken England and precipitated her prince to the tomb
could do nothing against a shoemaker. His weak protector-
ate which had not been the aim of the movement expired
with him, and his son Richard preserved hardly a few months
the shadow of the power which he had left him. The son
of Charles I. was recalled; monarchy was re-established in
England; and nevertheless the shoemaker Fox leaving his
prison, easily took possession of the mind of an infinite
number of discontented ones to whom he gave his doctrine
and formed a considerable party. Among his disciples was
a man of distinguished genius, profoundly meditative and
capable of becoming a legislator. This man called William
Penn has been celebrated. Having adopted in their com-
pany the ideas of Fox regarding the liberty and equality of
all men, based upon the qualifications which they all had of
being their own pontiff and their own magistrate without
owing to each other any deference or any mark of respect,
he formed the project of establishing this doctrine in America.
He travelled with Fox through all England, Holland, and
Germany making proselytes. When he had a sufficient
number, he obtained from Charles II., in 1681, for him and
for his successors, that province of North America which
from his name and the forest which surrounded it has been
called Pennsylvania; he sent there several colonies of Quak-

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 Fox the Shoemaker-Wm. Penn 395
ers and founded the city of Philadelphia to which he gave
his laws.'
Thus after the most violent shocks the designs of the
Will were accomplished. The germs of liberty and equality
which it had transplanted in America developed in silence,
multiplied, and acquired a force great enough to invade the
world when the time came. All the English and Dutch
colonies were penetrated by it and became emporocracies
of a certain form, where all political and religious ideas fell
into absolute indifference, one only excepted which had
been dominant in the creative head of Fox and in that of
his disciple, the legislator Penn-the idea of equality and
independence.
In 1699; about twenty years after, more than thirty thousand German
families migrated there; so that in a short time the number of other Europeans
surpassed that of the_English.

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 CHAPTER IV

ESTABLISHMENT OF mE JESUITS IN PARAGUAY--GLANCE AT

ASIA-REVOLUTION IN CHINA AND JAPAN-ANCIENT HIS-
TORY OF JAPAN-MISSION OF SIN-:MOU: HIS DOCTRINE
AND FORM OF GOVERNMENT-MISSION OF SOCTOTAIS,
FOLLOWER OF FO-m- DOCTRINE OF DISCIPLES OF
KONG-TZEE-:MISTAKES COMMITTED BY THE CHRISTIAN
:MISSIONARIES

IN that
the meantime the spirit of liberty could not act without
of necessity acting also and always in an opposed
manner. The movement which the disciples of Luther
made in America was imitated instantly by those of Loyola.
Whereas Fox and Penn gave in septentrional America a
shelter for the Will, the Spanish Jesuits gave one to Destiny in
the meridional; they founded among the savages of Paraguay
what they called the Country of the Missions, an extraor-
dinary establishment, the laws of which, exactly opposite
to those of Pennsylvania, were destined to balance the dis-
advantages. It is inevitable that the powers of the North
and the South of the Columbian hemisphere will one day
clash. It is then that Luther and Loyola will measure their
forces and overcome each other, or mingle together; they
will necessarily mingle if Europe takes, by means of Provi-
dence which never ceases to offer itself, the dominion which
is due her over the universe and which if she loses, she will
only lose by her fault.

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 Descendants of Genghis Khan 397
Asia is not at all in condition to dispute with Europe
this pre-eminence if Europe ever starts on the career, con-
senting to submit her Will to Providence, which she has
never quite wished to do since the origin of the Borean
Race which dominated it. Nor has Africa any right there,
and America will enjoy it only in proportion to Europe's
unworthiness.
After the conquests of Genghis Khan and those of his
children Oktai and Kublai Khan, Asia had offered only a
picture of an agitated sea whose waves contrary winds
caused to rise and fall; nothing there was stable; everything
changed its form every instant according as Destiny or-
dained it; her peoples, grown old without a will of their
own, obeyed her inconsistent laws in modifying them, never-
theless, by a residue of the providential influence which they
had formerly possessed. Among the descendants of Genghis,
Batukhan, son of Toushi, to whom had fallen Turkestan,
Bactria, the kingdom of Astrakhan, and the country of
the Usbeks, invaded Europe and ravaged, in the course of
the thirteenth century, all the eastern part of that country
as far as Hungary. On the other hand, Houla-Kou, son
of Tuli, who had inherited Persia, had crossed the Euphrates
at the same time and put an end to the caliphate of Bagdad;
while a son of Genghis named Zagatai had possessed Trans-
oxiana, Kandahar, northern India, and Tibet. All these
conquests lasted but a short time. It is the essence of things
subject to Destiny alone or to the Will to vary forms and to
change masters often; only the substance remains because of
the providential principle which is in it. The principal
error of the Will is believing itself able to take the place of
this principle by dominating Destiny.
China, in passing under the dominion of the descendants
of Genghis, only changed the dynasty. Such is the force
of the institutions of this ancient empire that no revolution
has ever been able to injure her. This depends chiefly upon
what these institutions, all reposing upon the mass of the

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398 Hermeneutic Interpretation
people, keep steadfast in the midst of the storm which agi-
tates only the surface. The army there being only a guard
to the throne and not her sole support, its destruction does
not bring about, as in the purely military government, the
downfall of the edifice, but only its usurpation; the monarch
places himself at the head of the State and forms anew the
army about him, and the nation wllich often has not experi-
enced the least disturbance does not perceive that it has
another master; this master, whoever he may be, can only
support himself as long as he possesses enough genius to
impose upon his rivals. The people, who feel by instinct
that their numbers protect them from all danger, are only
roused with much difficulty at the rumour of a danger which
cannot reach them. The descendants of Genghis neglected
their army too much; so an audacious adventurer was suffi-
cient to overthrow them. This adventurer had been, it
was said, a valet in a convent of bonzes; he became emperor
towards the middle of the fourteenth century. China pre-
served, as was her custom, her laws, her cult, and her man-
ners. She did this again at the commencement of the
seventeenth, when the Manchurian Tartars, becoming masters
there, founded one of the noblest dynasties that she has had.
This dynasty produced the celebrated Kang-hi who during
a glorious reign of more than sixty years was patron of the
arts and sciences in this Empire. 1
This prince protected the settlement of the Christian
missionaries in his vast states on account of the physical
sciences and mathematics which they taught there and he
permitted the exercise of their cult. This cult made, in a
short time, rapid progress there and without doubt would
have finally held a very high rank among the different cults
which were practised in China, if the monks who had been
1 One can judge of the promptness with which the fusion of the vanquishing

people with the vanquished was effected by the difficulty that the Emperor
Kang-hi experienced only fifty years after his victory in setting up a vocabu-
lary of the Manchurian tongue which was fast becoming extinct.

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 Christian Missionaries Dismissed 399

sent there had been willing to give up their intolerance and

bend more to the pacific spirit of the government; but
the dissensions which arose from their disputes, their arro-
gance, and their foolish pretensions, obliged Yon-tchin,
successor of Kang-hi, to send them away; Kien-long ban-
ished them entirely and forbade them ever to enter his
empire.
These missionaries, who were dismissed from China with
the most polite forms and consideration of which the Chinese
alone are capable, did not experience so much gentleness in
Japan. It is true that they conducted themselves in this
country in a manner still less endurable. Hardly had they
obtained influence there when they engaged their neophytes
to burn the statues of the Ancestors of the Nation and to
overthrow their temples. These acts, as unseasonable as
impolitic, had roused against them a part of the people.
Before the arrival of the Christians in Japan, other sects,
a dozen in number, existed as sisters who, mutually jealous,
watch over without excluding each other; who seek to rule
in the paternal household without driving each other away
and above all without dreaming of killing each other. But
such is the character of the sacerdotal Christian that he
cannot live in peace with any other priest. Wherever he is
received he must dominate and overthrow all that is op-
posed to him, or, persecuted in his turn, he must be buried
beneath the debris of the altars which he has wished to
destroy.
When the Portuguese discovered Japan in the middle
of the sixteenth century, this country enjoyed a perfect
tranquillity. It preserved in its government all the forms
of ancient, theocratic, and royal government. The Dairi,
who occupied the pontifical throne, resided in the sacred city
of Meaco, and the Cubo-sama who held the royal sceptre
had established his residence in the city of J esso. Through
the obscurity of the Japanese annals it was seen that this
form of government dated back to most remote times and

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400 Hermeneutic Interpretation
was attached not only to the Universal Empire of Rama,
but perhaps even to that of the Atlanteans. 1
The Japanese call themselves autochthonous, and give
themselves, as first legislators and first sovereigns, gods to
the number of seven, who during a long sequence of centuries
had governed them. They said that the last of these gods
had for a son a demi-god, named Tensio-Dai-Dsin, who was
the father of men, as his name expresses it in the Japanese
language. Mter many centuries had rolled by in prosperity
and peace, there came great dissensions upon the earth and
long wars which occasioned great changes there. Japan as all
the rest of the world was the prey of a thousand calami-
ties. At last the wrath of heaven was appeased, a divine
man was born. This man, whom the Japanese annals call
Sin-mou, appeared about the year 6oo before our era. War,
famine, and pestilence had just ravaged his native land.
These terrible scourges vividly disturbing the imagination
of the Japanese had in a manner prepared the way to legis-
lation and reform. A people is always more docile when
having escaped from shipwreck they recall the evils which
they have suffered and feel the need of a courageous pilot
and of a protecting divinity.
Sin-mou, attributing the dissensions which had shaken
the world to the separation of the two powers, sacerdotal
and royal, conceived the bold project of uniting in the same
hand the sceptre and the censer; this project succeeded for
him. During eighteen centuries this institution was main-
tained in Japan without the least change in the family of
this great man. This example is perhaps unique; for as I
have said in speaking of Mohammed, it is very rare to find
a line of men capable of sustaining both the tiara and the
sceptre, daring to take upon themselves such a burden.
1 The memory of the disaster of Atlantis had survived in Japan and was

preserved in a solemn f~te which was celebrated with much pomp. It was
the Mte of lamps or lanterns which is still celebrated in China and in India.
such as was celebrated formerly in Egypt.

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 Sin-mou 401

The Japanese, favoured by their geographical situation which

isolates them in the midst of the seas, born with a vivid
imagination, an upright mind, a great and strong heart, and
filled chiefly with the sentiment of their own dignity and of
their high calling-the Japanese were alone fitted to receive
and preserve this form of government for such a long time.
Before Sin-mou, there existed no other cult in Japan
than that of the Ancestors, which had survived the wreck
of all others. This theocrat added to the celestial region
where they were placed, a suite of similar regions inhabited
by superior spirits, whose essence increased continually
their purity, unto the point of being absorbed in the universal
Principle, whose infinite elevation did not permit either the
name or the attributes to be known. These superior spirits
were named Kamis. Spread in companies throughout all
parts of the universe, they inhabited according to their per-
fections the ethereal heavens, the sun, the moon, the lumi-
nous stars, the earth, and the other elements. Each, free
to address his vows to one of these spiritual hierarchies,
chose the one that appeared the most analogous to his taste,
to his character; tried to imitate its virtues and prepare
himself beforehand for the Elysium which pleased him
most.
The Japanese theocrat had established as a fundamental
dogma the immortality of the soul and its future state of
happiness or sorrow, according to its virtues or its vices;
but in accordance with a doctrine which was found only in
his cult, he left to each the faculty of creating for himself,
by his virtues, the sort of happiness which pleased him the
best. Sin-mou knew the peculiar spirit of his people and
conformed his teachings to it. The wicked, according to
him, had to wander in the emptiness of space repulsed by the
celestial spirits of all regions, to suffer there a thousand tor-
ments until the expiation of their crimes. Without telling
them positively that these perverse souls would be called at
the end of their sufferings to recommence another life and
26

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402 Hermeneutic Interpretation
animate earthly bodies, he inspired them with a great hor-
ror of noxious animals and forbade them to kill and eat the
domestic species and those which rendered daily services
to man.
To these simple, clear dogmas, Sin-mou added several
legal ceremonies, certain solemn fetes, to keep up the purity
and health of the body, which, uniting the citizens, caused
inequality of rank to disappear and strengthened the social
ties, and finally an indispensable pilgrimage to the cabin of
Isje, sacred and respected monument, where the venerable
Tensio-Dai-Dsin had given the laws to the first inhabitants
of Japan.
The temples dedicated to the Kamis or immortal spirits
were of the greatest simplicity, consisting only of a sanctuary
without decoration and more often without any image.
The garlands and ribbons of white suspended from the roof
indicated the purity of the place and a great mirror placed
upon a sort of altar was there to show the worshippers of
the immortal spirits that as they saw distinctly in this glass
the picture of the beauties or the defects of the body, thus the
Divinity could see imprinted in their soul the picture
of their virtues or their vices. These temples were called
Mia. Since the introduction of the cult of Fo-Hi in their
island, the Japanese have much more magnificent temples,
called Tira, into which they have admitted the divinities
of foreign nations, principally those of the Chinese and the
Indians. The interior of these temples often contains more
than a thousand statues placed about the principal statue
raised upon a superb throne. The magnificence of the
marble and gold rival each other. The mighty theosophist
who built the first Tira was called Soctotais; he appeared
towards the end of the sixteenth century of our era and
understood perfectly that after the revolutions occurred in
It is worthy of notice that the most ancient Egyptians admitted the same
symbol in their temple which leads one to believe that this usage goes back
to the primitive Atlanteans.

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 Paths of the Sages
India and in China the simplicity of the cult of Sin-mou no
longer satisfied the Japanese and offered to the vivacity of
their imagination only a worn-out bridle which must be
reinforced. His disciples in great numbers did not fail to
surround his cradle with many wonders. According to
their accounts, he appeared to his mother before his birth
and announced to her that he would be holy. From the age
of four he already possessed all the science of Fo-Hi. It
was said that being upon a high mountain, he received a
divine inspiration which was communicated to him in a
dream by an old Indian prophet called Darma. The con-
versations he had with Darma concerning the cult of Fo-Hi
were put in verse and as soon as published found enthusiasts
and violent adversaries. Soctotais triumphed over all ob-
stacles and was at last recognized by Dairi Jo-Mei, whose
son, aged only seven, explained the new doctrine in the
temples. This cult reanimated the spirit of a people natu-
rally inclined to virtue and enthusiasm. Japan then ceased
to be tributary to China; she exchanged her industries for
the riches of neighbouring nations.
Besides the ancient cult of Sin-mou, called Shinto, and
that of Soctotais, called Budsdo, on account of Buddha, one
of the surnames of Fo-Hi, 2 the Japanese some time after
received a third, from a disciple of Kong-tzee, which they
called Siuto, the Path of the Sages. The followers of this
last doctrine, raising themselves above all popular prejudices,
place perfection and supreme good in a tranquil and virtuous
life. They recognize no other reward or punishment than
the necessary consequences of virtue and of vice; that is,
the satisfaction which one enjoys in doing good and the
remorse which accompanies evil actions. They believe
the souls emanated from the universal Spirit, Soul of the
While the mother of Soctotais had this vision in Japan, Amina, mother
of Mohammed, had a similar one in Arabia.
Fo-Hi is called in Japan Amida and in China o-mt-to. This Sanscrit
aame signifies the Immense.

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404 Hermeneutic Interpretation
world, supreme, immortal Being; they think that they will
become united to their principle when they are no more held
by bonds of the body. According to them, there is no other
divinity than Tien or heaven. Nature, which they personify,
governs the world without having created it and she herself
has been produced by In and Jo, two powers, the one active,
the other passive; the one the principle of generation, the
other of death. All that exists in the world proceeds from
them and the world is eternal. The only exterior acts of
religion permitted by the Shintoists, who differ but little
from the Chinese literati, are reduced to a few ceremonies
in honour of their ancestors.
The three principal sects were again cubdivided and
raised to twelve, when the Christian missionaries arriving
in Japan, the thirteenth place was offered them. They
could have taken it without causing any trouble and perhaps
attained, insensibly, dominion over the others. But this is
not what they did. Hardly installed, their bishop without
any regard for the Dairi, whom all the other sects recognized,
proclaimed the sovereignty of the pope, pretended to depend
only upon him, and wished to take precedence of the kings.
These extravagant pretensions roused the Japanese, more
proud than indulgent, and the bishop was driven out; the
missionaries intrigued and were banished; their proselytes,
already numerous, armed themselves; they were opposed
and vanquished; they conspired; the conspiracy was discov-
ered and a frightful civil war ensued in which the Christians
were all exterminated. Finally in 1637 there appeared a
formal edict forbidding any Christian of whatever nation,
rank, and condition to appear in Japan under penalty of
death.
The Dutch profited a little while by these disasters by
making public abjuration of Christianity and by trampling
under foot the symbols of this cult; but their triumph was
fleeting and had very disagreeable consequences. All doors
1 Yn and Yang in Chinese.

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 Two Monarchs, Sacerdotal and Royal 405

were closed to them and they were banished to an unhealthy

island where they remained prisoners as long as their com-
merce lasted.
The revolution which separated the royal power from
the theocratic occurred in I I I 8 of our era, upon the death
of Dairi Takacura. This revolution, prepared in advance,
was carried out with the greatest tranquillity. The Seogon,
a sort of military officer, for a long time entrusted with all
the jurisdiction of the civil administration, made himself
independent under the title of Cubo-sama. He seized the
royal crown which he detached without effort from the
tiara; but he vowed none the less to the Dairi an unlimited
religious respect. He realized indeed that he would be
nothing unless he recognized a supreme chief. He recognized
him and the latter having sanctioned a usurpation which
was now indispensable, there were seen in Japan two distinct
monarchs, one sacerdotal, exercising the functions of supreme
pontiff, and the other royal, fulfilling those of civil magistrate
and head of the armies. The respective duties of these two
monarchs are easily distinct and the few troubles occasioned
by their opposed pretensions are promptly suppressed.
Cubo-sama possesses, it is true, an imposing material force;
he is feared and obeyed; but the Dairi enjoys a veneration
and respect so profound that this force is always found as
nothing when it is a question of turning it against him.
There was in Japan more possibility of the Dairi obtaining
possession of the royal power than of Cubo-sama seizing
the religious and this has depended upon the opinion of the
people and upon the influence which religion in general,
although divided in many sects, has not ceased to exercise
over him. It has not happened thus in other countries,
and above all in Syria, where the Turks have despoiled
without effort the Caliphs of Mohammed; but these Caliphs,
for reasons which can easily be deduced from all that I
have said, no longer believed in their apostleship and con-
sequently had no force. A maxim which I cannot refrain

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4o6 Hermeneutic Interpretation
from repeating is this: Every sovereign pontiff who doubts
himself must not hope that others will believe. In point of
cult, politics counts nothing: Truth alone is the basis of
Truth.

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 CHAPTER V

CONTINUATION OF OUTLOOK UPON ASIA-POWER OF THE OT-

TOMANS--cONDITION OF THEIR EMPIRE AND ITS
DECLINE-RAPID GLANCE AT PERSIA AND INDIA

SINCE the Empire of Rama had lost its unity, divisions

and subdivisions succeeded each other with an increas-
ing rapidity; Asia had become the theatre of a multitude of
continual revolutions which rolling one upon another had
left only confused traces, difficult to distinguish and ever
disappearing beneath those more recent. The Tartars,
principal motive of these revolutions, had become the in-
struments of Destiny; whatever name they bore, whatever
cult they followed, they could always be regarded as urged
on by a blind necessity. It was not in vain that the doctrine
of Mohammed, destined for them, had made a dogma of
fatality; they were in this wholly opposed to the Goths al-
though perhaps equally barbarous. The Goths had received
from Odin the arbitrary movement; this movement is
obliged constantly to offend the other or be offended by it,
until the moment when Providence will blend them.
Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, the King-
dom of Kashmir, then the most ancient of all India and the
sole fragment of the Indian Empire which had remained
until then intact, came to an end. It had lasted since 3IOO
B.C. and had had one hundred and fifty-three kings. A
M ussulman prince named Shems-heddin made this important
conquest. About the same time, the Turks, of whom I have
407

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408 Hermeneutic Interpretation
spoken several times, having advanced to the shores of the
Strait of the Dardanelles, after having tom the civil power
from the Caliph of Bagdad, had crossed this strait and
established themselves in Europe.
The Genoese, then possessors of the faubourg of Galatea,
are said to have favoured this passage by furnishing the ne-
cessary vessels for a few gold marks. Thus the emporocratic
spirit, indifferent regarding all things except those which
restrained its independence or which touched its interests
of the moment, furnished the means of placing between
Europe and Asia this barrier which nearly annihilated it
and which would have annihilated it if the Cape of Good
Hope had not been doubled. The expedition of Tamerlane
at the beginning of the fifteenth century and the victories
which this famous conqueror gained over the Ottomans
retarded somewhat this event, but did not prevent it.
Tamerlane, or Tamer-the-lame, was a Tartar prince endowed
with great audacity and more civilized than those of this
nation ordinarily were. It is said that among the European
nations he particularly esteemed the French; and that he
even sent an embassy to King Charles VI. He extended his
conquests over entire Persia, subjected the greater part of
India, broke open the great wall of China, and ruled over
Asia Minor and Egypt; to one of his successors, named
Ulugh-Bey, is due the first Academy of Sciences, founded at
Samarkand towards the commencement of the fifteenth
century. This monarch had the earth measured and had
a share in the composition of the astronomical tables which
bear his name. He merited children more worthy of him:
one of them eager to reign had him assassinated.
The Turks after having overthrown the Empire of the
Orient, as I have said, and placed that strong barrier destined
to restrain Europe from the coast of Asia, pursued their
conquests. Profiting by the dissensions which arose among
the descendants of Tamerlane, they again took possession
of Syria and Mesopotamia and subjugated Egypt. Salim

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 Ottoman Power Declines
I., Suleiman, and Salim II., who succeeded each other in
the sixteenth century, were the greatest monarchs of the
Ottomans; they took away the island of Rhodes from the
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, regarded as the bulwark
of Christianity/ invaded Moldavia, Wallachia, a part of
Hungary, and laid siege to Vienna. Western and Southern
Europe were menaced; the island of Cyprus had just been
conquered when Pope Pius V., believing rightly that the time
for the Crusades had passed and that he must act by himself,
had the courage to make war; he formed a league with the
Venetians and King Philip II. of Spain and co-operated at
the famous battle of Lepanto in 1571. This was the first time
the standard of the two keys had been seen unfurled against
the crescent. The papal standard triumphed and it had
to be thus, because it was not the destiny of Mohammed to
surmount that of Christianity, but only to arrest its inva-
sions into Asia. Whenever Rome has been menaced by
the Mussulmans it has been in vain. It was from this very
date when the two destinies clashed that the Ottoman
power commenced to decline.
This power was no longer so necessary, since the European
Will had opened two routes to the West: so it was seen de-
generating rapidly in the seventeenth century and becoming
only a shadow of itself in the eighteenth. Its last remark-
able exploit was the siege of Candia. The Vizier Achmet-
Cuproli took possession of this place after one of the most
stubborn sieges which history mentions.'" The barrier
continued to exist but it was only guarded. Those who had
placed it could not extend further their ravages.
The majority of politiques systbnatiques have considered
the government of the Turks as despotic; but they are mis-
taken in some respects. This government is not despotic as
to its essence, only as to form. It is the corruption of a the-
Charles V. some time after in 1525 gave the island of Malta to these
knights.
This siege lasted twenty years, and only terminated in 1669.

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410 Hermeneutic Interpretation
ocracy and its usurpation by military force. This govern-
ment is the most prophetic of all, that is, the one where the
necessity of Destiny makes itself felt with greater force.
The power of the sultan appears unlimited and nothing is
more constrained than this power, at every instant pressed
between the religion which restrains this prince and the
military force which urges him. The tiara which he has
usurped hinders him in his movements, and the sword which
is in his hands a two-edged weapon, wounds him when he
uses it unskilfully and strikes him down when he is weak
enough to fear it. The body of the J anissaries is that in
which lies this redoutable force. Under a prince whose talents
and courage render him worthy to command, the Janissaries 1
are docile instruments animated with military enthusiasm,
intoxicated with love of glory, and a feeling of their superi-
ority; but under weak or unfortunate sultans, these instru-
ments having become rebels, refuse the hand which attempts
to seize them, and make themselves masters of the crown,
which they take or give at their pleasure.
The sultan, considered as the delegate of God Himself,
is venerated while he is fortunate and his person is sacred,
because he is believed to be favoured by heaven. He can
then do many things. But if fortune abandons him, the
illusion is dissipated and, being regarded as reprobate, his
downfall is hastened instead of retarded. Destiny, his
force, crushes him as soon as he no longer sustains it.
During the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
this Destiny favourable to the Ottomans was very powerful.
The writers of this time, celebrated for their intelligence and
their impartiality, recognized the Turks as greatly superior
to the Christians in the knowledge and practice of military
art. Guichardin goes even to the point of saying that it is
from them that the Italians have learned the art of fortifying
places. But this superiority did not exist in the centuries
' The real name of the Janissaries is Yengi-Cheri, that is to say, new warriors:
these are the young Christian slaves instructed and disciplined from childhood.

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 Sufi-the-Sage 411
following and their power diminished greatly when Destiny
having achieved its movement stimulated them no fwther
in this manner.
Since the conquest of Persia by the Arabs, this country,
twice invaded by the Tartars under Genghis-Khan and
Tamerlane, at last drew breath under the very mild laws of
the Sufis, whose race, issued from Armenia, had brought
with it the manners of this country, the taste for arts and
magnificence. It is very curious that from the time when
Luther scattered over Europe the first germs of the schism
which divided the West, a Persian, of a character equally
bold, founded the sect which today divides the Persians and
the Turks. This man, called Haidar and surnamed Sufi-
the-Sage, made himself so powerful by dogmatizing in favour
of the followers of Ali against those of Omar, that Shah-
Rusta.Ii, still insecure upon the throne which he had just
usurped, had him assassinated. Ismayl-Su.fi, son of Haidar,
was endowed with sufficient courage to sustain, weapon in
hand, the opinions of his father and continue to propagate
his doctrine. 1 His disciples became his soldiers. He con-
quered and converted Armenia, whose forces gave him the
means of subjugating entire Persia and as far as the Tartars
of Samarkand. The crown of Persia, which he left to his
son Tahmasp, passed to his descendants who kept it for
several generations. Their kingdom became at the close
of the sixteenth century, during the reign of the great Shah-
Abbas, great-grandson of Ismayl, one of the most flourishing
and fortunate countries of the world. This monarch success-
fully fought the Turks and his conquests were great enough
to weaken their power and to hasten the decline towards
which they were tending. He recaptured from the Portu-
guese the island and city of Ormuz and diminished consider-
The followers of Omar are called Sunnites and those of Ali, Shiites.
The difference which exists between these two sects is that the latter regard
Omar and the four Caliphs who supplanted Ali as usurpers, making almost no
difference between Ali and the Prophet. The Turks are Sunnites; the Per
sians, Shiites; these two sects hate and curse each other.

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412 Hermeneutic Interpretation
ably their influence in Asia. He built several cities, em-
bellished greatly Ispahan, which he chose for the capital of
his states, 1 and made useful institutions everywhere. After
his death, which occurred in 1629, his son Shah-Sufi who
came to the throne did not have the talents of his father.
He was indolent and left the government of the state to
vile favourites who caused its ruin. The weakness of Shah
Hussein lost everything. The factions of the black and
white eunuchs disturbed so much the empire, throwing it
into such confusion, that a handful of adventurers known
under the name of Afghans or Agwans were sufficient to
overthrow it. 2 These Afghans easily destroyed an enervated
power which would have destroyed itself even if it had not
been exposed to their attacks. Mahmud, successor of Mir
W aiz, the first chief of these barbarians, besieged lspahan
and received the keys of this immense capital from the very
hands of the weak Hussein, who, not having the power to
defend himself, acknowledged him as his master and was
only too glad to give him his daughter.
It is said that Ispahan before having been ravaged by the Mghans at
the beginning of the eighteenth century was one of the most beautiful cities
of the world. The number of inhabitants is said to have exceeded a million
before the siege which it sustained in 1722. It had a great number of magni-
ficent palaces, among which towered that of the Sufi, which was more than a
league in circumference, one hundred and sixty beautiful mosques, eighteen
hundred caravansaries, two hundred and sixty public baths, a great many caf6>,
bazaars, colleges, promenades, etc.
There exists among the Afghans a curious tradition. It is asserted that
this tribe whose unique maier was war and pillage is a remnant of the ten
tribes of Israel scattered throughout Asia by the Assyrians. They consider
themselves descended from the Jews and claim Saul as their ancestor. At
the appearance of Mohammed they became attached to Islamism and val-
iantly fought to make it triumph. At first they enrolled under the flag of
Mahmoud of Ghazvanid who ascended the throne of Hindustan in 387 of
the hegira (993 A.D.), and afterwards under that of Sultan Khebal Al-Dyn
Gaury under whose orders they took possession of the city of Delhi.
The Mghans made, on their own account, the conquest of the mountain
of Solomon, Kuh Solyman, and there formed a regular sort of settlement. The
Grand Mogul Akbar built for them the city of Peshawar, situated on the route
from Astok to Kabul. These people enjoyed a high reputation for bravery,
but they are accused of mingling much ferocity and barbarism with it.

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 Condition of Asiatic People 413

In the meantime a son of this Hussein named Tahmasp

having survived the disaster of his family was saved by the
son of a herdsman named Nadir, who afterwards assumed
his protection. This Nadir, having become in time a formid-
able warrior, was placed upon the throne of Persia under the
name of Tahmasp Kuli-Khan and conquered India, where he
overthrew the Empire of the Moguls in 1739 Since that
time India has not had a moment free of agitations. Many
ephemeral sovereigns almost all Tartars have succeeded
each other in the interior; and her coasts were at first exposed
to the ravages and quarrels of the Portuguese and Dutch,
and later to similar enterprises of the French and English.
The latter, having remained sole masters, have displayed
there all the arrogance of their exclusive emporocracy and
have made the rights of their monopoly recognized from the
Cape of Good Hope to the waters of Japan. In the midst
of these repeated revolutions one must not believe the Asiatic
people have been unfortunate to the same degree as Euro-
peans placed in the same circumstances would have been,
or that they have experienced the same pangs and suffered
the same griefs. Subject to Destiny, which holds them
captive, they do not rebel against it; they bend beneath the
blast of the tempest and are exempt from the moral pains
which a ruffled Will and wounded amour-propre give. The
revolutions which change the form of governments there
do not reach the mass of people who remain indifferent to
the success of their masters, nearly all foreign. The wealth
which has been brought them from all the countries of the
earth impresses them little. They let it be seized by avari-
cious merchants, who are obliged to yield the greater part
of it to nabobs still more avaricious than they. The ex-
treme fertility of the land and the heat of the climate leave
little to desire for their needs. Nourishment and clothing
they acquire with such facility that there is never any per-
plexity about obtaining them. Uneasiness concerning the
future which devours European peoples is hardly known by

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414 Hermeneutic Interpretation
the Indians. They live upon so little that nowhere is the
labour of man cheaper than in India. The workman who
fishes for pearls in the sea of Bengal, or who searches for
diamonds in the mines of Golconda, earns ten times less
than the one who clears the streets of mud in London or
Paris.

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 CHAPTER VI

REFLECTIONS UPON RUSSIA AND SWEDEN-PETER THE FIRST

-cHARLES XII.-<:ONTEST BETWEEN mESE TWO
MONARCHS-VICTORY RESTS WITH RUSSIA-WHY?

IT began
was at the moment when the power of the Ottomans
to decline that a formidable power which had
scarcely been observed until then was seen rising over the
eastern limits of Europe towards the north. This power
to which is given the name of Russia, because of the part
of Europe which she inhabits, anciently called Russland,
is composed of diverse peoples of whom the principal ones
are the Slavs, the Finns, and the Varangians. It has been
but a few centuries since the Russians were known only
under the name of Muscovites on account of their capital
city called Moscow.
Before the Czar, Peter the First, whose reign commenced
in I689, Russia had remained almost entirely unknown to
the nations of Western and Southern Europe. One does
not know what became of this country after the legislation
of Odin. The Finns who inhabited it alone, encroached
upon by the Slavs coming from the border of the Orient, were
forced to cede the territory to them. The city of Slavensk
built upon the shores of the Volkoff a short distance from
Lake Imen, was the first capital of these conquerors. A
pestilence having depopulated it, Novgorod was built at a
short distance. The new city was beginning to prosper,
when pirates, designated only by the name of Varangians,
415

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416 Hermeneutic Interpretation
that is, the Occidentals, came under the leadership of their
chief Ruric 1 to establish themselves in the environs. They
profited by some troubles in Novgorod, then a republic,
to offer their services to one of the parties which, having
accepted them, was conqueror only on condition of becom-
ing tributary. Nevertheless the three peoples finally be-
came mingled and united by means of the Christian religion
which they received at the end of the tenth century. 2
From the eleventh century the Russian Knes were tri-
butaries of the Tartar Tsars of Kazan. Ivan Basilowitz
succeeded in throwing off completely this shameful yoke
and began the foundations of the Russian Empire towards
the middle of the sixteenth century. He made the conquest
of Kazan and Astrakhan, and changed his title of Knes, which
signified prince, into that of Tsar, which meant Sovereign
Autocrat. This word, which has since been written Czar
is confused with the name of Ctesar, which the feudal sover-
eigns of Germany took and has been more justly translated
by that of Emperor; for at least the Czar of Russia was
vested with a real power and ruled over an immense empire,
the most extensive which had existed since that of Rama.
It is true that this extent comprised as yet, chiefly in Asia,
only deserts deprived of cultivation and inhabitants; but
the savage tribes which scourged the north and east were
able to settle in time and be taught agriculture and the arts
and multiply them by means of good legislation. A popu-
' I suppose it should be written Rolrich; this name, equivalent to that of
Roland or Raoul, signifies Regulator of the Empire and indicates a Scandina-
vian origin. The Varangians were a division of Scandinavians who advanced
to the Orient, while the others moved towards the Occident or the Midi.
They received from the Slavs the name of Occidentals, for the same reason
that we call them Normans.
It is said that a princess named Olga, having been baptized at Constan-
tinople, brought the Greek religion into Russia. Her grandson named Vladimir
was the first Christian grand duke of Russia. For quite a while the Arch-
bishop of Novgorod was dependent on the Patriarch of Constantinople; but
he was finally consecrated patriarch in 1588 and took rank after the one in
Jerusalem.

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 Ivan Basilowitz
lation is never wanting where mild, protecting laws and a
fertile land are united.
The Czar Peter, justly surnamed the Great, undertook
to finish what I van Basilowitz had commenced, and succeeded
by force of genius in overcoming the obstacles which things
and men opposed to his efforts in placing Russia in the rank
of the first powers of Europe. There was between this Ivan
and Peter a fatal resemblance: each caused the death of his
son. Ivan, suspecting his of plotting a conspiracy during
the siege of Pleskov, killed him with the thrust of a pike;
and Peter judging that his son Alexis was upsetting his
work through incapacity had him condemned to death.
The ancestors of Peter had occupied the throne since
1613. They had been called there after most cruel revolu-
tions by an assembly composed of the chief boyars who,
needing a sovereign after the assassination of young Deme-
trius, last scion of the princes of Vladimir, elected Michael
Romanoff, son of the Archbishop of Rostov and a nun and
allied to the ancient czars. The young Romanoff, after
having received the crown, ransomed his father who was
prisoner among the Poles and created him patriarch. The
conditions were extremely favourable for founding a regular
theocratic and royal empire, but they failed. Alexis, son
of Michael Romanoff, far from allowing the patriarch to
continue supervision over the morality of his actions, as
his father had done, was indignant at this humiliating sub-
jection and wished to reduce the priesthood to the same
nullity in which it was before the revolution that had placed
his family upon the throne. The Patriarch Nicon, who was
endowed with a haughty character, resisted; not only did
he wish to preserve what they were trying to deprive him of,
but also to acquire new prerogatives to which he had no
right; the struggle between the two powers commenced,
and the emperor profiting by the mistakes which his
antagonist committed, turning against him the constitution
of his own cult, having convoked a national synod, solemnly
27

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418 Hermeneutic Interpretation
deposed him and confined him in a cloister for the rest of
his days.
From that time all theocratical power was annihilated;
the Russian Government became very nearly like that of
the Turks. The imperial guard-the Strelitz, strongly
resembling the Janissaries-began to assume the same ascen-
dancy and showed itself disposed to regard the emperors as
its creatures and the empire as its patrimony. Peter on his
accession to the throne was well aware of this as he nearly
became a victim of it. Mter having happily escaped the
snares of his enemies, thwarted the bloody intrigues of his
sister Sophia, banished this artful woman to a convent, and
seeing himself firm upon the throne, he conceived the indis-
pensable but dangerous project of abolishing the imperial
guard. But before dealing this decisive blow, without
which the reform which he meditated in his empire could
not have been effected, he wished to win the esteem of his
subjects by his accomplishments and his victories.
He was instructed in all the arts and chiefly in that of
navigation, for which nature had given him an almost in-
vincible aversion; but he triumphed over his aversion and
even vanquished nature by causing himself to be thrown
into the water notwithstanding his horror of this element.
He became by dint of study and labour the best mariner
of his states. He wished also to understand military tactics
in its smallest detail and fulfilled the duties of soldier from
the grade of corporal to that of general in a regiment which
he had created. Mterwards, having assured for a certain
time the tranquillity of his empire and having given his
confidence to an able foreigner named Le Fort, he travelled
through the states of Europe, as a simple individual in the
suite of his own ambassador. He saw everything important
in this extraordinary journey and learned all that could be
useful to him, and worked with his own hands in the ports
of Holland on the construction of ships, in order to learn
everything that he wished his subjects to learn. In the

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 Peter the Great 419
meanwhile, he had quieted down several seditions, fought
with advantage the Tartars of the Crimea, made the Chinese
respect his frontiers, assured his commerce over the Black
Sea, and conquered the important place of Azov.
So much foresight and activity astonished Europe.
His character struck her with terror. Peter while still at
Vienna learned that a conspiracy had broken out in Moscow
during his absence and that the Strelitz had formed the
plan of replacing his sister Sophia on the throne; he hastened
there and arrived in the midst of the tumult; he restrained
the factionists and struck the blow which he had long since
contemplated. The formidable guard was crushed. Two
thousand of these unfortunate Strelitz convicted of having
plotted in the conspiracy were hanged from the battlements;
their chiefs, several officers, some priests, had their heads
cut off; two women were burned alive and the rest sent to
Siberia and the neighbouring countries. Mter this event,
where the Czar displayed a mixture of grandeur and remark-
able cruelty, nothing resisted him further in the interior of
his empire. He could make at leisure all the changes that
he wished and even suppress completely the dignity of
patriarch which disturbed him. But an enemy or rather
a formidable rival appeared outside his empire. This was
the terrible King of Sweden, Charles XII.
Since the elevation of Gustavus Vasa to the throne of
Sweden, and his adherence to the schism of Luther, this
kingdom had acquired a great preponderance among the
N orthem powers. This preponderance still increased under
the weak reign of the Emperor of Germany, Rudolph II.,
when a Protestant league being formed against a Catholic
league plunged this country into a civil war of thirty years
which reduced it to the most deplorable state. Mter divided
successes, where the two parties, alternately victors or
vanquished, had heaped ruin upon ruin, and poured blood
upon blood, the Protestants, as much weakened by their
victories as by their reverses, had yielded almost everywhere

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420 Hermeneutic Interpretation
when Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, changed the
face of things and took from Emperor Ferdinand II. all the
advantages which he had hoped to draw from these disasters,
to increase his authority and perhaps annihilate the schism
forever. This prince, everywhere victorious, became the
arbitrator of Germany. France became an ally with him
and furnished him with forces to weaken by this means the
power of the House of Austria. Unfortunately the King of
Sweden was killed at the battle of Liitzen, but he left very
able generals whom he had trained and who completed his
work; while the emperor, having deprived himself of the
only able man who might have opposed them, by having
the famous Duke of Wallenstein, whose ambition and talents
he feared, assassinated, found himself without support and
obliged to renounce all his hopes. Mter the death of Gus-
tavus Adolphus, his daughter Christina ascended the throne.
The victories of her father and the genius of her chancellor
Oxenstiern made Sweden the first power of Europe. She was
not at all dazzled by so much grandeur. Mter having
jointly with France pacified Germany by the peace of West-
phalia, whose famous treaty forms still the basis of public
right, this extraordinary woman astonished the world by a
voluntary abdication of a throne which she had occupied
with so much glory. At the age of twenty-seven, she left
the court of which she was the ornament and renouncing
the Reformation of Luther went to Rome to devote herself
to the culture of sciences. It appears that this queen felt
that in the singular situation in which Sweden was, this
kingdom, enjoying a great military regard, with very weak
power in all other ways, had need of a warrior monarch.
Charles Gustavus, Duke des Deux-Ponts, whom she chose,
was perfectly fitted for the occasion. He had the force
necessary to sustain a crown upon which the European Will
founded its hope. This Will, after having prepared every-
thing in England to effect towards America the movement
of which I have spoken, made again an effort in Germany

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 Christina Abdicates the Throne 421

by means of the schism of which Sweden was declared the

head. If the monarchs who succeeded Charles Gustavus
had felt their position as Christina felt hers; if, instead of
turning the strength which the Will of Man had given them
against this same will and aiming at despotism instead of at
popular power, they might have favoured the movement
which had raised them; it is difficult to say here what point
Sweden might have reached. She might easily have ac-
quired Poland, conquered Denmark, dominated the whole
of Germany, and perhaps would have pushed back into Asia
these very Russians who crushed her. But to do this it
was necessary that circumstances should be favourable.
Christina, who did not wish it, felt at least her insufficiency
and retired not only from the schism but from the throne;
whereas Charles XI., bringing there a spirit utterly opposed
to that which he should have, lost all and prepared the down-
fall of his son. He wished to reign with despotism over
provinces that yielded to him only in the hope of preserving
their liberty, and he committed the great blunder of con-
demning to loss of honour and life the unfortunate Patkul,
a Livonian gentleman, whose only crime was bringing to the
foot of the throne the respectful and severe complaints of
his country. This same Patkul who had had the good for-
tune to escape, having been seized some years after by
Charles XII. and accused of having incited Augustus, King
of Poland, to enter into possession of Livonia, was con-
demned to the most cruel torment by the implacable King
of Sweden. But this dishonourable act checked this prince
in the midst of his triumphs and made useless all the war-
like and even civil virtues with which he had been favoured
in the highest degree.
The victory of Narva, which had given in a moment to
this young monarch the reputation of a hero and the strength
of a conqueror, had only ephemeral consequences; it was a
brilliant but fleeting light which vanished in the darkness.
After having been for a moment the arbitrator of Germany,

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422 Hermeneutic Interpretation
master of Poland and Saxony, victor in all places, he lost
at Pultava the result of so much labour and appeared to
have acquired so much glory only to decorate his rival with
it. The fortunes of Peter surpassed his, precisely because
the Czar of Russia was what he ought to have been, the
instrument of Destiny, whereas he, who should have been
that of the European Will, had wished to be as his f.a ther,
only the instrument of his own will. Thrown after his
defeat into the possession of the Turkish Sultan he had
plenty of time to reflect upon the indiscretions of his conduct,
which he did~not do; .he dreamed only of fomenting against
Russia a war which indeed did burst forth between this
power and the Sublime Porte, but which had finally no
other result than that of showing Europe the genius of
Peter the Great in all his splendour and of giving her some
idea of what a new empire could become which, from the
first moments of its foundation, had contested with so much
advantage against an empire strengthened by victory and
by time.
From this time, Sweden lost all her rights to supremacy;
she was only what her own strength and extent of her terri-
tory permitted her to be. The Russian Empire constituted
and civilized by Peter I. became consolidated and polished
under the successive reigns of four women endowed with
different qualities but all appropriate to the conditions;
sometimeS mild, sometimes severe, but always brilliant.
This empire was the work of Destiny which, in bringing
these four princesses to the throne, confirmed a thing whose
example the history of the world offers everywhere; to wit:
that it is through women that all civilization, all intellectual
movement, of whatever nature it may be, commences; and
that, more precocious than men, speaking generally or indi-
vidually, they must appear where Destiny, Providence, or the
Will of Man determines an early growth; now the Russian
Empire is in the number of political creations extremely
forward, which must be so in order to fulfil its object.

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 CHAPTER VII
ELEVATION OF PRUSSIA UNDER FREDERICK U.-MISTAKES
CO.MMITTED BY THIS PRINCE-DISMEMBERMENT OF
POLAND--GLANCE AT POLAND, DENMARK, AND OTHER
POWERS OF EUROPE- SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE
MINISTRY OF CARDINAL RICHEUEU

THUS, by the mistake of the Swedish monarchs Charles

XI. and Charles XII., Sweden did not attain the end
that she should have attained and the schism of Luther failed
again as a basis. The European Will made a new effort and
decided that the Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick 1., should
assume the title of King of Prussia in 1701. This new king-
dom, by no means great at first, reached a remarkable
ascendancy from the accession of Frederick II., surnamed the
Great; it dominated Germany, and served it as a safeguard
against the attacks of Russia. If Frederick had possessed as
much sagacity as valour and bel esprit, he would have again
seized the occasion which was presented to give his power a
basis; and he would have taken care not to ally himself with
his two natural enemies, Austria and Russia, to tear Poland
in pieces and divide the shreds among them; for it was not
with a few square leagues added to his states that he could
hope that his successors would later resist a colossus such
as Russia. It was necessary to conquer and not divide Po-
land, to change her form and not destroy her political
existence; which would have been easy by gaining the affec-
tion of the people and meriting from her the title of king.
Frederick was destined to this. The movement imparted
423

oigiized by Goog le
 424 Hermeneutic Interpretation
by the Will urged it; and if he had wished it, all obstacles
which appeared in opposition would have been levelled. He
preferred to follow another movement and unfortunately for
him it was that of Russia.
Poland, which was thus dismembered by the three powers
that I have just named, was the most extraordinary co~sti
tuted state of Europe; she was neither a monarchy nor a
republic, neither a feudal state, nor an aristocracy; she was
all this together. She was entitled a republic and had a
king; she had a king and no one wished to obey him. This
king was almost always a foreigner. The Palatinate, who
took away the liberty of the people and who crushed their
subjects or rather their slaves with the hardest and most
injurious yoke, were occupied only in defending their liberty
against the attempts of the king. The state was always in
tumult and the diets resembled less a senate than an arena
of gladiators; the veto of a single nobleman sufficed to pre-
vent the most important discussions. They foolishly pre-
tended to unite in this kingdom, without intermediary bond,
Destiny to the Will and pretend to make the laws of neces-
sity and liberty move together; thus the state was exposed
to continual revolutions. Nevertheless several distinguished
kings are counted there and among others John Sobieski,
who gained the famous battle of Kotzim over the Turks and
forced them to raise the siege of Vienna. The wisest was,
perhaps, Cardinal Casimir, who followed the example of
Christina and abdicated the throne in 1668, and died at
Paris, Abbot of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The kingdom of
Poland in all these circumstances did much less than it was
able to do; thus all that it lost at different times would have
sufficed to constitute a flourishing state. It was compelled
in 1671 to become tributary to the Turks; and a century
after it was dismembered and lost its political existence.
Denmark, since the infamous action of Christian II.,
who caused the Swedish Senate with a large number of the
principal citizens to be killed at a solemn f~te in 1520, has

oigiized by Goog le
 Poland and Denmark
exercised no direct influence upon Europe. The absolute
separation from Sweden has weakened her t~ much for the
extraordinary conduct of the states of the kingdom in 1660
to have any results. These states bestowed upon King
Frederick III. hereditary right and absolute sovereignty.
Under any other condition a similar act would have ruined
the Danes or made them formidable to their neighbours.
It did nothing of this; which goes to prove that these peoples
had neither the strength to consent to a like act when free,
nor to refuse it when forced.
Hungary and Bohemia not only have not exercised the
influence upon Europe that Denmark has, but these two
kingdoms have certainly experienced greater misfortunes;
Hungary particularly which appeared to enjoy a moment of
eclat under the reigns of Carobert and of his son Louis.
This Carobert had been chosen for the throne by Pope
Boniface VIII., one of the most enterprising pontiffs that
the holy seat has ever had. He was the son of a nephew of
Saint Louis, called Charles Martel. He united to his king-
dom Dalmatia, Servia, Transylvania, and Wallachia and
made Hungary the most powerful state in Germany; but
this power was only transitory. Two queens, adulteresses
and regicides, were the cause of her downfall: Jeanne of
Naples and Elisabeth of Bosnia. 1 Louis, son of Carobert,
One of these queens, Jeanne of Naples, having married the unfortunate
Andre of Hungary, had the cruelty to have him strangled before her eyes with
a bow-string which she had woven herself. At the news of this outrage, Louis,
King of Hungary, brother of this Andr~, raised an army and hastened into
Italy to avenge the death of his brother. He took possession of the kingdom
of Naples and being able to keep it, left it to the pope, contenting himself with
pursuing the queen. This act of clemency was too great. Providence did
not approve it. Jeanne, surprised some time after by her adopted son, whom
Pope Urban VI. had made King of Naples, was smothered between two
mattresses.
The second of these queens was Elisabeth of Bosnia, wife of this same
Louis, whom Providence made use of to punish the crime of Jeanne. At the
death of this prince, in 1382, the States of Hungary elected first his daughter
Marie who was not yet marriageable, and shortly after chose Charles Durazzo
for king, a direct line descendant of a brother of Saint Louis. This being

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426 Hermeneutic Interpretation
was a great prince for the time in which he lived; he was
cherished by his people, admired by foreigners, and chosen
at the end of his life to be King of Poland. He was sur-
named the Great. Unfortunately he left no male heir. His
widow Elisabeth of Bosnia, having had Charles Durazzo,
the elected King of the States of Hungary, assassinated so as
to preserve the throne for her daughter Marie, drew the
kingdom into bloody dissensions of which she was the first
victim about the middle of the fourteenth century. From
this time Hungary incessantly ravaged, now by the Turks,
then by the Austrians who had wished to subject her and
whose rule she would not permit, did not enjoy a moment
of tranquillity. At the beginning of the sixteenth century
her king, Louis II., was killed at the battle of Mohacs against
the Turks and his army was cut to pieces. Suleiman took
away with him more than two hundred thousand captives.
All was annihilated by fire and sword. Those who survived
in Hungary were obliged to dig subterranean habitations
to escape the rapacity of the victor.
I have said enough of Germany in connection with the
imperial power and of Italy in respect to the pontifical power;
it is useless to return to similar things where only the names
would be changed. One must know that if, since Charles
V., the emperors of Germany possessed any power, they owed
it to their own states and not in the least to their titles. As

displeasing to Elisabeth, widow of Louis and mother of Marie, she had the
unfortunate monarch assassinated before her. This execrable regicide re-
volted the Hungarians so, that a short time after, Elisabeth and Marie travel-
ling in Lower Hungary were seized by a noble of Croatia who, believing
himself authorized to avenge the death of the king, brought the two queens
to triaL Elisabeth, having been recognized as guilty, was drowned. Marie
was retained in prison and without difficulty given over to Emperor Sigismund,
who had arranged to marry her so as to unite Hungary to his States. This
noble believed he had done an act of justice; but the emperor, judging other-
wise, had him arrested and condemned to death as regicide. This action
having roused all the nobility caused a most stubborn civil war. The Turks,
arriving unexpectedly in the midst of these discussions, beat the troops of
Sigismund and, surprising him, confined him in prison.

oigiized by Goog le
 Interdict of Pope Paul V. Scorned 427
sovereigns of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, part of Flanders,
or other countries, they held without doubt the highest rank
in Germany and a very distinguished rank in Europe; but it
was not, 1 repeat, as emperors, it was as monarchs. If the
empire had existed a moment under Charlemagne, it was
long since it had existed at all.
The pontifical power, which had existed scarcely more
than the imperial, was entirely crushed at the beginning of
the seventeenth century by the resistance of the Venetian
Republic to Pope Paul V. This pope having put an inter-
dict upon the Republic and excommunicated the Doge and
the Senate, nowhere was the interdict published and the
excommunication was scorned. The most extraordinary
thing about this affair was that it was Henry IV. who acted
as mediator between these two powers and set them to
rights. It was seen on this occasion how the times were
changed. The popes with no force of opinion and, reduced
to vain ceremonies, became exactly what it was hoped they
would become; but the emperors also enjoyed no power
beyond that of their real strength as was seen several times
and particularly in I 740 when Maria Theresa, Queen of
Hungary and Bohemia by the will of her father, disputed
the empire with Charles VII., stripped him of his duchy of
Bavaria, and had the power to have her husband, Francis I.,
elected to reign under her name, as she reigned afterwards
under the name of her son Joseph II. It was on this occa-
sion where the imperial power was really extinct in the person
of Charles VII. and where the election of the emperors of
Germany was only a vain formality.
Thus, as I have said, Spain, having reached the highest
point of grandeur in the sixteenth century, declined rapidly
in the seventeenth and finally had no power in the eighteenth.
The court of Philip III., like that of Louis XIII., was only
a chaos of intrigues. The Due de Lerme reigned in Spain
under the name of his master, as Cardinal Richelieu did in
France; but by no means with the same genius. The Due

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428 Hermeneutic Interpretation
d'Olivares who succeeded him under Philip IV. was the
reason that Portugal separated once more from the Spanish
monarchy and that all the possessions of the Portuguese in
the Indies became the prey of the Dutch. The regency of
Maria of Austria and the weak reign of Charles II. finished
by losing all.
Owing to the genius of Henry IV., France began to take
a finner position in Europe and renounce the weak, evasive
politics which she had been obliged to follow since Francis
I ., when this monarch was assassinated. It was seen then
how one man can influence the fate of nations. All was in
harmony under his administration; all was discord under
the regency of his widow Marie de Medici. The drowsy
factions awoke; the religious peace reinstated with so much
trouble was disturbed anew; the people who lived in abund-
ance fell again into misery. Civil war was rekindled, mur-
ders recommenced, the most hideous prejudices revived.
The prime minister of the Regency, Concini, was assassinated
and his body, dragged through the streets, was tom by brig-
ands who devoured his heart; his wife Galigai was burned as
a sorceress; Parliament, ridiculous instrument of most ridi-
culous opinions, forbade under penalty of death to teach
anything contrary to the doctrine of Aristotle.
Louis XIII., drawn against his will into a fatal war,
experienced only disasters; everything inclined towards his
utter ruin when Cardinal Richelieu entering the council
believed himself sufficiently strong to sustain the edifice
ready to pass away. He was indeed. This man, of whom
as much evil as good has been said and much of both, merited
neither the excess of blame nor the excess of praise which
has been lavished upon him. Sailing on a tempestuous
sea and always about to be shipwrecked, his merit was
never to have doubted himself. As yielding as violent, his
friends were his instruments and his enemies his victims.
He did not change the politics of France which were bad,
but he put into them an order and a vigour which made it

oigiized by Goog le
 Cardinal Richelieu 429
succeed. While he persecuted the Protestants in France
and crushed forever their power, he allied himself with those
of Holland and Germany and protected their pretensions;
while in France he shamefully treated the mother and the
guardian of his king, his queen, and his benefactress, he
humiliated himself before the Queen of Sweden and offered
to Europe the singular spectacle of a cardinal forming
a compact with a Protestant queen. He strengthened
royalty in France and left it shaken in England. He founded
the French Academy and restrained the liberty of the press;
he was a free thinker and had Urbain Grandier burned as
a sorcerer. Finally, it was only by humiliating his king that
he succeeded in making him powerful; and by tyrannizing
France that he succeeded in making him respected. This
extraordinary man died in 1642. The widow of Henry IV.
had preceded him by five months and Louis XIII. followed
him five months after. It is a question which of the three
was the most unfortunate. If certain pleasures of pride
and vengeance are effaced before the hatred which one
inspires and the continual terror which one experiences, it
is evidently Richelieu, whose fatal destiny never permitted
him to attain general or particular good, except by dangerous
or bloody routes.

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 CHAPTER VIII

STATE OF FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XIV.-HER GRANDEUR-HER

DECLINE CAUSED BY MADAME DE MAINTENON-REVOCA-
TION OF THE EDICT OF NANTEs--REFLECTIONS REGARD-
ING THIS-MINORITY OF LOUIS XV.-BIRTH OF PHILOSO-
PHISM-THE WILL TRIUMPHS OVER DESTINY-VOLTAIRE
-ROUSSEAU-INFLUENCE OF THESE TWO MEN

THEspiracies
reign of Louis XIII. was for France a time of con-
and torment. The minority of Louis XIV.
was one of trouble an'd anarchy. Cardinal Mazarin was
only the pale image of an original character whose traits
were firm and decided. He sailed, however, amid tempests;
but it was in yielding to contrary winds and in tacking
without cessation that he reached port. His principal merit
was understanding himself and understanding other men.
However, the French nation had become civilized in the
midst of the troubles and perplexities of its government;
it had grasped moral influence on all sides. The century
which has been called the century of Louis XIV. opened as
early as the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu with the tragedy
of the Cid, which Comeille brought out in 1636. Poetry
and all the fine arts in general had received a great impetus.
Commerce was doubtless far from rivalling that of the Dutch
or the English; France did not have numerous colonies
which could furnish her with gold and silver from America,
nor the precious products of Asia; but she possessed a fruit-
ful soil, inexhaustible in an infinity of productions of fore-
4JO

oigiized by Goog le
 Influence of Madame de Maintenon 431
most need and always ready to respond to the care of a
patient and laborious agriculturist. 1
Before Louis XIV., France had no doubt displayed cour-
age, but almost always a courage of circumstance which
appeared with the vehemence of lightning and disappeared
like it. French impetuosity has become a proverb. Louis
XIV. was the first to lay hold of this impetuosity to moder-
ate it and give it steadiness and persistence, so as to trans-
form it into real valour. This prince was the creator of
that national virtue of which France has given so many
proofs since. He was truly great in this respect. He dis-
dained the insidious politics of Richelieu and Mazarin and
left the shadowy course where all his predecessors foundered.
He believed the French nation strong enough to be genuine,
and himself strong enough to rise above intrigue. All that
he did in the vigour of his age he did openly. As soon as
Madame de Maintenon had forced him to change his char-
acter in teaching him to dissimulate he was lost. Dissimu-
lation could not ally itself with the majesty of his genius. If
this monarch had had an aim, a plan, more extensive know-
ledge, or even a ministry strong enough to second him, he
might have changed the face of the world; but all this he
lacked. He made war from choice and conquests for glory.
He had ministers, sycophants or weak in conception. Lou-
vois and Colbert who have been cited were not on a level with
their master. At the most they could have served as secre-
tary to a prime minister if there had been one. His generals
1 It has been remarked for some time in France, that agriculture is the

basis of national prosperity and furnishes to the manufacturers their principal

elements and to commerce its principal activity. This state differs in this
from others and chiefly from England where commerce gives, on the contrary,
the impulse to agriculture and furnishes to the manufacturers the greater part
of their raw materials which is sought from afar. This observation, which
I make here only in passing, will become later of the highest importance when
it will be a question of that sort of government which I have called Emporo-
cratk-a government in which commerce dominates not only as integral part,
but as political power disposing of a large army and possessing abroad, subject
peoples and slaves.

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432 Hermeneutic Interpretation
only were great because he inspired them. When he no
longer inspired them, when a cold ambitious woman had
deadened his soul, had covered with a veil of hypocrisy the
elegant manners of a voluptuous and proud court, everything
was changed. Falsehood took the place of truth and all
became petty where all had been great.
France was indeed close to her ruin. The King, in allying
himself with this profoundly artificial woman, spoiled_ the
beautiful character that nature had given him; he followed
no longer his own inspirations but the inspirations of a
false and egotistical mind which he believed substantial
and prudent. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes which
this mind suggested to him was the most impolitic and most
ill-timed measure. His life was divided into two parts-the
one fortunate and brilliant, the other gloomy and miserable.
It was in vain that Pope Innocent XI. had the Te Deum
chanted with joy at Rome; the Pope had no longer the force
to have the slightest share in this event, even if he had been
just and wise; but how far he was from being so!
When Francis I. and the kings his successors, persecuted
the Protestants they did not persecute them so much as fol-
lowers of Luther or Calvin, but as subjects rebellious to their
laws. These laws had been promulgated against them and
they exposed themselves, in infringing them, to the penalties
which they inflicted. These monarchs acted thus in their
functions, and did not abandon the rights of their crown.
But when a civil war had broken out, as the two parties
were legally recognized, they fought each other, at first with
equal arms and afterwards in stipulating conditions of peace;
these conditions, freely accepted on both sides, bound the
kings as much as the subjects and it was no longer permitted
either of them to break them without committing a perjury.
This is the reason, so little known, which puts a great differ-
ence between actions which appear the same. Writers,
otherwise estimable, not having observed it, have not con-
ceived for the massacre of St. Bartholomew all the horror

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 Massacre of St. Bartholomew 433

that it should have inspired. They have seen it with the

same eye as they have seen the massacres of which Francis I.
was guilty, but the position was not the same. Francis
had promised nothing; on the contrary, he had threatened,
while Charles IX., having recognized the Protestant party
in signing with it a treaty of peace, became a perjurer in
violating it as he did. So the massacre of St. Bartholomew
was not a royal act, purely criminal, a coup d'etat, it was an
execrable assassination. And in the same way, the Edict
of Nantes, being the effect of a treaty of peace concluded
in 1576, and renewed in 1598, its revocation did not depend
on Louis XIV. unless this prince wished to declare war upon
his subjects and consequently authorize their rebellion.
These two acts, which I cannot compare, although I show
their illegality, had consequences analogous to their crimi-
nality. The one annihilated the House of Valois; the other
obscured the glory of Louis XIV. and greatly influenced the
prosperity of his family which was dimmed by it.
This monarch, notwithstanding the adversities which
overwhelmed the end of his reign, almost all of which had
their origin from the fatal source which I have just indicated,
had, however, the force to place his grandson on the throne
of Spain; but this event which under other conditions would
have been very great, especially if France had not again
missed the place which was her due, at the head of European
civilization, was confined to nothing much and became some-
times disadvantageous on account of a certain family pact
which frequently made Spain more embarrassing as an ally
than she would have been as an enemy.
Mter the death of Louis XIV., all the ressorts of the
government, which the mind of Madame de Maintenon had
restrained to excess, were relaxed into a contrary excess;
the veil of hypocrisy in which this woman had forced the
court and the city to be enveloped was tom with violence
and all was invaded by an audacious license which soon
knew no bounds. The Duke of Orleans, Regent of France,
as

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434 Hermeneutic Interpretation
during the minority of Louis XV., deceived by the counsels
of Cardinal Dubois whom he had made his prime minister,
relied upon all the errors of a disordered imagination.
Pressed by the heads of finance he adopted Law's system
regarding paper money and did not confine himself within
the limits which alone could secure its success. The people,
confident and credulous, took up this system with an incredi-
ble blindness. Bank-notes multiplied beyond all imagina-
tion. A fatal struggle was established between the adroit
man who had nothing and the ignorant but avaricious man
who, having something, risked it to run after a fictitious
fortune where all the chances were against him. A treacher-
ous speculation took place by which morals, already shaken,
received a fresh shock. Fortunes abruptly changing hands
brought about a general confusion. The lowest part of the
nation, finding itself suddenly on top, gave opinion a new
movement which bewildered it.
At this time began the philosophism of the eighteenth
century, an incoherent mixture of wit and pure reason; a
distinctive instrument able to destroy everything, incapable
of constructing anything, friend of the ruins over which it
soared with pride. Its appearance was the work and the
triumph of the Will. Frightened Destiny sought in vain
arms against it. The reign of Madame de Maintenon and
that of the Regent had left nothing intact. The Unigenitus
bull and Jansenism, the unseasonable pretensions of the
Council of Embrun, the madness of the fanatics, only in-
creased the phantom by giving it occasion to display its
accustomed weapons, sarcasm and ridicule, and to gain, over
its weak adversaries easy triumphs. Destiny gave way.
Meanwhile Louis XV., still a child, left to the ignorance
of his counsellors, was bewildered from his first step. All
the measures which he was made to take were in contradic-
tion with circumstances and clashed equally with men and
things. In the midst of an incredulous and depraved court
he issued a severe edict against the Protestants and directed

oigiized by Goog le
 Voltaire and Rousseau 435
new persecutions against them. Astonished Europe asked
in vain where was the principle of this excess of zeal. Sweden
and Prussia profited by this mistake and gained the best
French manufacturers. The alliance of Spain for which
Louis XIV. had lavished so much treasure and so much
blood was abandoned; the Infanta whose marriage with the
king was stopped was unceremoniously sent home and this
prince was given as wife the daughter of a dethroned king.
This impolitic alliance drew France into a disastrous war
which disturbed Europe to no end. The second war in
which Louis XV. entered as ally of the Duke of Bavaria
against Maria Theresa was equally calamitous. Its result
increased the influence of the Will and diminished that of
Destiny. France was eclipsed. Prussia seized the rule.
The Will triumphed. Philosophism which it had brought
forth sat upon the throne with Frederick II.
Then, among the multitude of men who rushed into the
whirlwind of the Will to take part in this triumph, two were
chiefly observed. One, a universal wit, decided sceptic,
man of the world, and adroit courtier, substituting for the
depth which he lacked the extent and eclat of superficialities,
declared himself against Providence whose power, only sus-
pected, afflicted his pride, and led against it a crowd of
athletes more or less strong who followed his colours. The
other, profound reasoner, brilliant writer, eloquent to enthu-
siasm, endowed with a genius, vigorous as independent,
threw himself with lowered head against Destiny which had
replaced him in the world, and drew after him all those who
could kindle the same spirit of paradox and the same love of
liberty. Voltaire and Rousseau, although naturally enemies
and opposed on all other points, agreed, however, in this one:
that the Will of Man is everything. The first declared as
imposture and falsehood everything which emanated directly
or indirectly from Providence; the second as usurpation
and tyranny everything which came from Destiny. The
one overthrew the altar, denied the pontiffs their sacerdotal

oigiized by Goog le
436 Hermeneutic Interpretation
authority, and only wished for all religion a divine phantom
seated upon liberty unlimited by conscience; the other shook
the throne, refused legislative power to the kings, and pro-
claimed loudly the sovereignty of the people on whom he
established the whole social edifice. Fontenelle had pre-
ceded Voltaire, and Montesquieu had written before Rous-
seau. But the two pupils far surpassed their masters,
assuming that they recognized them as such, for philosophism
did not recognize them.
These two men usurped all the voices of renown. The
power of the Will of which they were the promoters carried
them on likewise. It did not appear that one could be
anything outside of the activity of their vortex. Such was
their influence that although they declared quite formally
that they needed neither priests, nor kings, nor priesthood,
nor nobility, a great number of priests, nobles, magistrates,
and kings were among their disciples. Frederick had given
the lead; he dominated over the highest opinion. How
could he help being what he was? All the Protestant princes
were philosophers; Emperor Joseph II. was a philosopher,
Catherine II. herself, and, what is still more astonishing,
even Pope Clement XIV., were philosophers. Everything
was philosophy from one end of Europe to the other except
the Turk, however, who was always there to arrest the too-
petulant impetus of the volitive principle whence this
philosophism emanated.

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 CHAPTER IX

CONSEQUENCES OF THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND-MOVE

KENT OF THE WILL IN AMERICA-ITS PROPAGATION
IN FRANCE

W HILST these things were happening, the revolution

in England, which appeared arrested by the recall
of Charles II., was resumed by the expulsion of King James
and the nomination of the Prince of Orange, his son-in-law,
under the name of William III. This William died without
children; his sister-in-law, Anne Stuart, second daughterof
James, succeeded him without the least difficulty and with-
out paternal respect having the slightest power to prevent
her usurpation, which is a most peremptory proof of the
triumph of the Will over Destiny. Mter the death of this
queen whom the intrigues of her favourites urged now to
war and then to peace, according to their interests and by
the most petty means, 1 the English Parliament, considering
itself able to express the wish of the English nation, called
the Elector of Hanover to ascend the throne in 1714, under
the name of George I. Since this time England has been
a royal emporocracy whose king is the honorary sovereign
and Parliament the real master, or lacking it, the ministry
which subjugates or corrupts it. Holland, which had fore-
stalled her in this sort of government, has been eclipsed, and,
It is said that the disgrace of the famous Marlborough who brought
about the peace with France and saved this kingdom depended on a pair of
gloves.
437

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438 Hermeneutic Interpretation
obliged to follow a movement stronger than hers, has been
only a humble satellite of this maritime star whose splendour
has covered the two hemispheres.
But, at last, after fifty or sixty years of this brilliant
existence, this star has had to receive a check. The moment
has arrived when the germ of liberty, settled in America by
the care of Fox and Penn, after being nourished and de-
veloped in the shade, has had to manifest its strength and
produce its fruits. This is what happened in 1774 when
the English colonies of North America, under the pretext
of some vexations on the part of the mother country, had
suddenly resolved to withdraw from its domination, and a
general congress being formed to this effect at Philadelphia
the command of the insurgent armies was conferred upon
Washington. This movement, at first judged of little
importance, scarcely attracted the attention of Europe,
which did not suspect the immense results that it would
have when the act of union appeared, by which these colo-
nies declared themselves independent and constituted them-
selves a republic under the name of the United States. It
would no doubt be difficult to conceive, without all that I
have said, what strange infatuation prevented the European
powers from seeing the danger which was concealed for them
in this act of union. They would have seen it, no doubt,
if the same force which had provoked it had not also pro-
duced their blindness. But all had been prepared in advance
to favour the effect which was about to take place. France,
just emerging from a difficult reign where royal authority
without energy could neither make herself respected abroad
nor obeyed at home, delivered to the ministers of a king
animated by the best intentions but young and inexperienced,
-France was not in a condition to evade the snare which was
set for her. She saw in the movement which was taking
place in America only a means of weakening England and
of diminishing the preponderance of this power in Europe.
Louis XVI., to whom his counsel presented it under this

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 United States of America 439

point of view, could not look upon it otherwise; he determined

to favour it and drew Spain and Holland into the same
decision.
Thanks to this powerful diversion, and to the French
troops which had gone to America, liberty triumphed in
that part of the world. The English Parliament was con-
strained to recognize the independence of the United States,
and this was done by an authentic bill in 1782. But the
disturbance caused in America was felt in Europe; the
energy of the insurgents, their bravery, their devotion to
the country, their love of liberty had formed the subject of
all conversations. Their manifestoes were read and ad-
mired, their speeches in Congress were similar to those which
in former times resounded in Athens and in Rome and which
reminded the greater part of literary men and statesmen of
what had been their delight while in college. Soldiers hav-
ing returned from America brought with them the seeds of
insubordination and disputes which they sowed in the army;
and the superior officers, instruments of an insurrectional
will whose action they did not suspect, admirers of Wash-
ington or Franklin, were all disposed to imitate them if the
occasion should present itself; which it did.
The land wherein the Will of Man scattered these seeds
of revolution brought from America was marvellously pre-
pared to receive them and make them fruitful. The sceptic
philosophers at whose head were Voltaire, Mirabeau the
father, Diderot, Helvetius, and all the Holbach set, so called
on account of Baron Holbach at whose house they gathered,
the political philosphers, among whom Rousseau, the Abbe
de Mably, the Abbe Raynal, and some others had ruled by
tum, had all together stirred the minds in diverse ways and
had roused them to fermentation. Their opinions, in some
way opposed, left, however, in the heads which received them,
-and these heads were the foremost and strongest in Europe,
-two clear and fixed ideas which were reduced to this: that
the one could do without priests and kings in the government

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440 Hermeneutic Interpretation
and that the altar and the throne were the inventions of
fraud and tyranny, good for times of ignorance and weak-
ness, but which could be broken without fear and relegated
to the storeroom of fanaticism and despotism in times of
wisdom and strength, where knowledge, having attained
its highest degree, would no longer permit their continuance.
These two ideas, cultivated chiefly in France, passed
into Prussia and from there were propagated throughout
the rest of Germany. Weishaupt seized them and, as I
have already announced at the beginning of this work, saw
in their union the realization of the famous golden age
described by the poets. Full of this fantastic dream he
imagined a Utopia in which he claimed to make all men
without exception their own sovereigns and their own pon-
tiffs. His doctrine, which was decorated with the name of
Illuminism, made rapid progress and, mingling with the
lost mysteries of the Freemasons, entered France, where it
threw a new source of agitation into the minds already in
fermentation.
Financial embarrassments, court intrigues, mistakes of
the ministry had aroused France, had disturbed parlement,
and had obliged Louis XVI. to take vigorous measures
which his character, too easily influenced, had carried out
badly; but one cannot understand both things and men
very clearly if one believes that such weak motives could
cause such a violent and complete overthrow as that which
took place, if this overthrow had not been the effect of a
moral movement prepared long before. This movement
depended entirely upon the free Will of Man, acting in the
absence of Providence upon the necessity of Destiny which
it surmounted, like an overflowing torrent which demolishes
its dikes, destroys its banks, tears, breaks, and drags along
all that resists it, and rolls at last, laden with debris, over
devastated fields. This movement was in politics what the
schism of Luther had been in the cult a little less than three
centuries before; it had the same cause, as I have taken

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 Political Movement in France 441

pains to state, and was one of the results of the combat long
since established between liberty and necessity, the Will of
Man and Destiny.
I shall not enter into the details of this horrible subver-
sion which has been called by the more restricted name of
Revolution. These details are too present, too well known to
the greater part of my contemporaries, so that I dare to
abridge them. The slightest events which happened have
left too profound traces in the memory of those who have
survived them, that one can omit one part and make choice
of another. In a narrative like this one must tell all or
nothing. There are several good works on this subject and
that of Madame de Stael is assuredly not one of the least.
This wonderful woman, endowed with an exquisite sensibil-
ity and a quite remarkable vigour of thought, has left little
to desire in the picture of events; it is true she did not know
the metaphysical causes which I unfold in general, but at
the time when she wrote, her ignorance was forced. '
I shall perhaps relate some day in another work what I have seen of the
Revolution and what has been particularly connected with me; but here would
be neither the place nor the time. During the whole course of the revolu-
tionary tumult and for more than thirty years I have not left Paris. Un-
perceived in the midst of the parties, I have observed them quite closely,
without ever coming into collision with them. Bonaparte alone has per-
secuted me for particular reasons which I shall expose later.

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 CHAPTER X
SUPPRESSION OF THE JESUITS-<::ONDITION OF THE MINDS AT
THE TIME OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION-ELEVATION
OF BONAPARTE

N OTE this singular coincidence. Just when the first

symptoms of the Revolution manifested themselves
in America and when the Will, ready to burst forth in Europe
created vigorous defenders in the sceptical and political
philosophers, Destiny lost its strongest supports there. The
Jesuits were no more. This formidable institution preyed
upon by the movement of the century collapsed almost
without resistance. This is one of the greatest phenomena
which has ever appeared on the religious and political
horizon and it has been almost ignored. Who would have
believed it! The Parlement of Paris declared itself against
them. France, Spain, Portugal, the Pope! the Pope him-
self banished them. It seemed that the volitive action
which was manifested would draw into its vortex even
Destiny itself, forced to follow the magic impulse which it
gave to everything. Perhaps never had this action been
displayed with such energy. A veritable frenzy took pos-
session of the minds. If religion still took refuge in some
sacerdotal heads, they were taxed with weakness and blind-
ness. The parlements would have been ashamed to show
themselves royalists. It was good form for them to be
opposed to the court in everything. The nobility itself
mocked the prejudices which constituted it. The ministry
filled with a puerile presumption, still believing to command
442

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 Tiers-Etat Assumes Control 443

opinion, when opinion commanded it, gloried foolishly over

its successes in America, when these same successes were to
ruin it. Finally, there existed almost nothing religious in
religion, nor real royalist in royalty. When, recalled by
reflection, the religious sentiment and royalism wished to
reappear, it was no longer the time. The necessity of
Destiny, vanquished by the force of the Will, had allowed
events to march with such rapidity that the defenders of
the altar and the throne, always behind the circumstances,
presented themselves in the arena only to be crushed there.
Those who have been witnesses of these deplorable events
and who remember the rapidity with which they succeeded
each other must still shudder with terror. This was no
ordinary time, be assured; the destiny of no one, whoever he
might be, could resist the violent movement which involved
all things. No position was strong enough, no inference
irresistible enough, no prudence, no foresight extended
enough. Everything gave way before the terrible power
which was moving. Providence, absent, unrecognized, or
veiled, acted only by laws too universal to be felt. Destiny
was nothing. The Will was everything. Let us follow for
a moment the unfolding.
Hardly had the States-General assembled at Versailles
at the beginning of May, 1789, when in the month of June
the deputies of the communes, then called the Tiers-Etat,
assumed control over the nobility and the clergy. The
royal authority which wished to oppose it only gave more
impetus to the torrent and hastened the famous declaration
of the Rights of Man, which, in imitation of that of the
United States of America, sanctions insurrection. In the
month of July the insurrection bursts forth. Paris rises in
rebellion; the Bastille is demolished in a moment and its
governor killed. 1 Many magistrates are massacred who
The great Cond~ bad uselessly besieged for three weeks this same fort-
ress of which men without a chief and nearly without arms took possession
in two hours.

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444 Hermeneutic Interpretation
endeavoured to oppose the tumult. France imitates Paris.
At the voice of Mirabeau the national guards arm them-
selves. There are arms on all sides. Three million soldiers
appear to come out of the ground like the warriors of Cad-
mus and like them destined to destroy each other. In the
month of August the feeble barrier which still surrounds
the throne is overthrown. The nobility itself destroys its
rights and treads upon them. Vainly in the month of
September the National Assembly, frightened at the preci-
pice into which it feels itself thrown, wishes to retrace its
steps by decreeing the inviolability of the person of the
king. This illusory inviolability is violated on the 6th of
October. A multitude of furious women rush into the palace
of Versailles; some brigands who follow them kill the guards
and with their blood-stained hands attack the monarch
and his family. He is hurried away to Paris; he is forced to
sanction acts which debase the throne and overthrow the
altar. He has the weakness to agree. Before the end of
the year, the property of the clergy is declared the patri-
mony of the nation and the nation itself is covered with a
mass of paper money, which soon increasing with frightful
progression makes fortunes change hands and causes an
upheaval like that which had already resulted from the
system of Law, but more radical and more vast.
The year 1790 opens with the persecution of the priests
who refuse to swear allegiance to the new constitution which
the pope does not recognize, and with the institution of the
famous club of J acobins. On one side the last resources of
Destiny are taken away and on the other a limitless field
is given to the arbitration of the Will. This Will triumphs
in the federation of the 14th of July. More than four
hundred thousand French, assembled at Paris from all
points of France, bind themselves by the same oaths. That
day was great in its inconceivable nullity! If Providence
had been present, I do not believe that anything in the uni-
verse could have equalled the magnificence. In 1791, the

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 Louis XVI. 445
persecutions against the refractory priests become more
intense; the nobility migrates; the foreign powers begin to
look at France and appear to interest themselves in the
consequences of the struggle which they see established
there. These consequences are no longer doubtful. The
National Assembly, all-powerful in opinion, declares that
it alone has the right to renew itself and that the king has
not the right to dissolve it. The king, from whom this act
tears the crown, tries but too late to save himself by fleeing;
he is arrested before his departure from the kingdom; he
is brought back in triumph to Paris where he sees himself
constrained to accept the shadow of power, which they
indeed are willing to allow him in a constitution which its
founders believed immortal and which did not live ten
months.
The throne collapses the 1oth of August, 1792; it col-
lapses apparently under the blows of a handful of factionists,
but in reality under the effort of the popular Will, which,
provoked abroad by insulting manifestoes, becomes irritated,
bums to avenge itself, proclaims war, and not finding any-
thing to strike quickly enough, strikes everything that it
supposes to be in accord with its enemies. From the palace
of the kings, which it has just stained with blood, it drives
the fatal instruments of its ravages to the prisons filled
with unfortunate victims and orders their massacre. The
National Convention succeeds the Legislative Assembly;
it proclaims the Republic upon the heaps of ruins, while
innocent blood still reeks around it. Everything which
Providence holds holy and sacred, everything which Destiny
holds august and imposing is trampled under foot. This
Convention, political colossus, assemblage deformed by the
most opposed elements, outrages the priesthood in its first
steps by ignoring the sovereign pontiff, 1 and royalty, by
1 Having written to the Pope regarding some persecutions which French

artists had experienced in Rome, the government of the Republic gave him
only the title of Bishop of Rome.

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446 Hermeneutic Interpretation
humiliating its monarch. Forgetting that the person of
the king had been declared inviolable by a law not revoked,
it dares to call to its bar the unfortunate Louis XVI. and sub-
mit him to a judicial interrogation. This indignant prince
should have challenged this iniquitous tribunal, and, sum-
moning it in tum, ask by what right rebellious subjects
dared to become judges of their king. He had not the force
to do it; he was condemned. If he had done it, if he had
challenged his judges, the Convention might have been able
to go further, perhaps, but the sentence would have been an
assassination and the consequences would have been very
different. The fatal compliance of Louis ruined him. This
prince delivered Destiny into the power of the Will. In
vain were all the sovereigns of Europe leagued against France.
Nothing could stop the devastating torrent, which, having
overthrown the last barriers, raised their menacing waves
above all obstacles and rolled their enormous mass over
all heads.
Force of arms could do nothing. When one of the three
great powers of the Universe alone dominates the other two,
there are no exterior means that can arrest its course. It
reaches by its own movement the dominion of the world
and from that of the world to that of the Universe, if it does
not carry within itself a germ of destruction which arrests
its progress. This germ is developed more or less late, but
always irresistibly by a sequence of universal laws emanating
from the Divine Wisdom. The exterior forces ordinarily
employed are all broken; death even is without power; it
can do nothing against the Will. Men die, the instruments
change place, but the thought which moves them remains
immortal and irrefutable. There are even cases where
death is the most powerful of vehicles. If one had had only
the force of arms to oppose the movement which was deter-
mined in France, the subversion which it drew after it
would have been general; Europe and the entire earth inun-
dated with blood, after having experienced for several cen-

Digitized bvGoogle
 Reign of Terror 447
turies all the scourges which France experienced for several
months, would have found, instead of the golden age which a
blind Will had promised, the age of its utter destruction.
But in order that this should happen, it was necessary that
this Will should not be divided; which was impossible for
the reasons which I have given. It was therefore divided,
and so much the more quickly as its action was the more
violent.
At first, the Convention being divided into two factions,
that of the Girondists, and that of the Mountainists, clashes
and is broken. The Girondists are sacrificed and their
partisans die on the scaffold. Then begins the 31st of May,
1793, the formidable epoch which is called the Reign of
Terror. Robespierre is its chief. Blood flows in torrents
through the interior; the most frightful famine devours
the inhabitants and Victory meanwhile pushes forward the
Republican colossus. The war is general. Europe is
ravaged by the most numerous armies that it has ever seen
assembled. Those of France alone exceed eight hundred
thousand men. Everything yields to their forces. France
is covered with immense glory which unfortunately deprived
of principle brings about no result. The Convention, al-
ready divided, divides itself again. The faction of the
Mountainists, triumphant for fifteen months, is thrown into
disorder in 1794 Robespierre and his adherents are crushed
beneath the debris. After this memorable epoch of the
9th of July (Thermidor), the colossus is shaken in long con-
vulsions. In May (Prairial) 1795, a new division brings
about the abolition of the Jacobin Club and the suppression
of the revolutionary tribunal. The violence of the move-
ment is greatly diminished and many treaties of peace are
concluded. The French Government without form up to
this moment assumes one. It is the form of the Republic
of Carthage which the Convention gives as a new invention,
throwing aside, however, the only things in it which might
have given it force: the statue of Moloch and the slavery

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448 Hermeneutic Interpretation
of the Numidians. The popular legislators, still divided
amongst themselves, divide the people. Paris takes sides
against them. The forty-eight sections of this capital
arouse themselves and throwing more than fifty thousand
men against the Convention determined to destroy it.
Then appears on the scene of the world a prophetic man
endowed with a strong will and a rigid destiny. This man,
called Napoleon Bonaparte, saves the Convention, lost with-
out him, and begins, on the 13th day of September (Vende-
miaire), the first union of the Will and Destiny and effects
the first submission of liberty to necessity.
The year 1796 is memorable for having seen the weaving
of this formidable knot; it is famous too for the campaign
of Bonaparte in Italy where the number and rapidity of his
victories astonish Europe although accustomed to the tri-
umphs of the French. Since 1797, peace has been concluded
with all the potentates of the continent; England alone re-
mains at war and this has to be thus; for henceforth she
becomes the rival of France and her competitor and has in
view the same end. The Directorate (as the republican
government in France is called) is composed of five directors
and a legislative body separated in two chambers; the Direc-
torate having become the centre of a volitive movement
begins to follow the fortunes of this movement, and, being
always divided in opinion, strikes itself, is mutilated, and
grows weaker until the 18th of August (Fructidor). Bona-
parte, adroit in seconding this mistake profits, by it; and
seeing that these ignorant politicians did not comprehend
in the least their position, that they still took as the product
of their strength what was only the product of his, resolves
to withdraw and abandon them to their nullity; he goes with
forty thousand men into Egypt, of which he makes a useless
conquest, x and while he pursues the war in Mrica and in
Asia with a mixture of success and reverses, that which he
I have already said and I repeat it that the destiny of Africa and of Asia
is in Constantinople.

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 Napoleon Bonaparte 449
had foreseen in France happens. All is disorganized there
and the acquired advantages lost; the frontiers are invaded
and the legislative body, struggling against the Directorate,
strikes and breaks it without knowing with what to replace
it. Bonaparte abruptly abandons his army in Egypt,
crosses the sea, reappears unexpectedly in France, and pro-
vokes a revolution which places him, with the title of First
Consul, at the head of the French government. The two
other consuls, which he gives himself as colleagues, and the
senate, the so-called conservator, the debating tribunal, and
the mute legislative body by which he is surrounded, are
there only to support his growing power and to veil its
progress.
Thus finishes with the eighteenth century the volitive
movement whose principal cause, having come from America
twenty years previous, had begun to manifest itself openly
in 1789. Bonaparte, a prophetic man as I have said, en-
dowed with an enormous force of centralization, believes
himself powerful enough to become master by throwing
himself into its vortex, and after having seized it, fortunate
enough to attach to it his destiny. He laboured twelve
years at this great work displaying in it an obstinacy of
character and military and administrative talents of remark-
able distinction. He did not repulse the crime of his political
career but neither did he summon it. He was hard without
being cruel, and crafty without being perfidious. Ready to
dominate Europe, and, while his first wife, was still alive,
having married the daughter of the Emperor of Germany,
the successor of Charlemagne and of Augustus, he believed
that he had reached the goal of his desires; but he was
mistaken. He understood well enough his destiny and put
into what he calls his star a boundless confidence; but he
did not know either the nature of the movement of which he
had taken possession or that of the knot which he had un-
dertaken to form. Liberty and necessity which he wished
to unite, are incompatible in their essence. They can never
as~

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450 Hermeneutic Interpretation
be united except in the interest of a third power which he
must know how to seize where it is; now this third power,
which is called Providence, Napoleon never knew and never
sought to know.

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 CHAPTER XI

WHO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE WAS-HIS DOWNFALL-RESTORA-

TION OF THE BOURBON FAMILY

BONAPARTE was not capable of restoring peace to the

world troubled for such a great number of centuries
by the ever-increasing struggle between Necessity and
Liberty, the Will of Man and Destiny. I repeat here, with-
out any animosity entering my thought which the memory
of his persecutions concerning me could arouse; I am at this
moment an historian and I must forget all to speak the
truth. 1 Napoleon was only the expression of military
tyranny, his authority was only complete where his armies
could move and where they had weight. Great spaces
were necessary for him to display his strength. Wherever his
soldiers could not penetrate, his power was weak and almost
insignificant. He has sometimes been compared with Robes-
pierre, but without reason; they were exactly the opposite.
Robespierre a volitive man, without learning, having all
his force in instinct, must be regarded as the expression of
popular tyranny, whose action was reflected in the slight-
est revolutionary committee; there was no public opinion
aside from it; those who had the misfortune to confide in
' What follows is in part a copy of another of my works entitled NotWn!
S11r le sens de l'Ouie. The portrait which I made there of Napoleon is better
placed here. This portrait is only sketched. To understand perfectly this
extraordinary man one should read what Madame de S~ has said of him.
No one knew him better than she did, or has depicted him with more force
and truth.
451

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452 Hermeneutic Interpretation
it were lost. The more limited the space, the stronger he
was. In great spaces he could do nothing. Thus this
subaltern tyrant fell, as soon as, the circle of his authority
being extended, he wished to move great masses. The
contrary happened to Napoleon a prophetic man, dominated
by the opinion that he himself created and that he knew how
to inspire in others, very powerful in the animistic part of
his being, weak in all the rest; whose head, half in light and
half in darkness, astonished by the vivacity and eclat of
certain faculties, while others ever plunged in a gloomy
mist remained inert and by their pettiness and their immo-
bility escaped notice. While victory followed his steps and
success enlarged his horizon more and more, his moral being
dilated in proportion; but when reverses came and according
as the space narrowed around him he felt his strength
diminish; this colossus breathed no more when the
atmosphere of Europe failed him.
Having reached, in 1811 and 1812, the highest point of
his prophetic grandeur he felt by an intuitive inspiration
that all was not accomplished. It was in vain for courtiers
and flatterers to say that his empire was built upon firm
foundations and that he could, resting on his laurels, con-
template in all their superiority the immensity of his work;
he did not believe it. He always saw an obstacle to sur-
mount; and this obstacle, always uppermost in his thoughts
obsessed him eternally. Fatigued by seeking it without
ever seeing where it was, he ended by seeing it where it was
not. He persuaded himself that Russia was this terrible
obstacle which was troubling his repose and that he would
find, as he announced it, the keys of London in the Kremlin
of Moscow. For this purpose, he shook entire Europe, and
at the head of an immense army attempted against this em-
pire the expedition that ruined him. Everything on this
occasion was limited to this; his destiny, with lowered head,
rushed against a destiny more stalwart which shattered it.
What he did afterwards was futile, even his famous departure

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 Downfall of Napoleon 453
from the island of Elba. The violent movement which he
roused at this time was an act of despair. He himself felt
perfectly sure during his reign of a hundred days that he
was displaced, that his star no longer ruled France, that
his destiny was worn out, and that if he had succeeded in
awakening that terrible Will of 1793 which he had dulled,
instead of drawing it into his vortex, he would have been
drawn into its vortex.
This moment of exaltation served only to make him fall
lower. In I8I4, he had been vanquished by the conspired
elements in favour of Russia; in ISIS, it was by the English
sustained by the Prussians. Sovereign in the island of
Elba, he became prisoner on that of Saint Helena. Treasons
were mentioned under the walls of Paris as well as in the
field of Waterloo; there were no treasons; it was inferiority
of destiny. All that had been favourable to him till then
became contrary to him; his wisest precaution failed in
effect and his slightest faults were enormous follies.
However, this same Destiny which abandoned Napoleon
favoured France by bringing back the family of her kings,
the descendants of Saint Louis and Henry IV. the legitimate
possessors of the crown of Hugh Capet. Everything ap-
peared to return to the ancient order of things and yet it
was difficult for all to return, because for twenty-five years
time had gone on and the Will of Man, having been drawn
into an irresistible movement, had razed to their foundations
institutions whose rebuilding was impossible. Louis XVIII.
felt it with a just sagacity and thought it fitting to give to
France a representative monarchical government in which
an inviolable monarch, assisted by a responsible ministry,
proposes the laws to a legislative body composed of a cham-
ber of hereditary peers and a chamber of deputies of the
departments elected by an electoral college. This form of
government, sanctioned by a charter solemnly granted to
the nation, rules France today.
Submissive as all Frenchmen are to their law and ready

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454 Hermeneutic Interpretation
to obey religiously her slightest injunctions, my intention is
not to examine in particular this constitution of my country,
to point out either its defects if it contains any, or the ad-
vantages which can be found there. I wish, since this is
permissible, to rise to the highest and most general considera-
tions, and after having traced with a sure hand the principal
events which, x:elating to the Social State of Man, have taken
place in the world during the space of more than twelve
thousand years, after having linked them to the simultaneous
action of the three great powers which rule the Universe,-
Providence, the Will of Man, and Destiny, -and after having
mentioned the causes and results, as far as possible; I wish,
I say, to show to which of these three powers the different
peoples of the earth attach most particularly the diverse
forms of government which they have adopted, are adopting,
or will adopt; and what relations these constitutional politi-
cal forms of the social body have with the constitutional
metaphysical forms of Man. I hope that the reader, after
having followed through a multitude of centuries the diverse
phases of the Social State, and having progressed from causes
to effects with a chain of physical and metaphysical proofs
which no doubt have not escaped his sagacity, will follow
with attention the corollary which I am going to present for
his meditation, so as to draw from it for the future, useful
inductions and luminous conclusions regarding what may
or may not be.

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 CHAPTER XII

RECAPITULATION

IN engaged
this book have just seen the last results of the struggle
we
between Liberty and Necessity, the force of
the Will and the fatality of Destiny. The history of the
earth offers no example of an explosion so violent, of a sub-
version so complete as that of which France has been the
theatre and of which Europe and the entire world have felt
the effects. After a victory which one has believed absolute,
this superb Will which has figured already as having at-
tained the culmination of its desires, being seized in a snare
as adroitly as vigorously set, is seen drawn into a prophetic
whirlpool, which it has at first confused with its own, and
which has drawn it beneath the yoke of Destiny, which it
has broken with violence. In order to flatter its disappointed
pride, it has been told that this day was its own and it has
feigned to believe it to manage the right of disposing of it.
Let no one be mistaken; the struggle is not finished; Pro-
vidence alone can terminate it. All that men can do,
whether they consecrate themselves to Destiny or whether
they follow the impulses of the Will, is limited to this; mak-
ing repose longer and combats more rigorous. The inten-
tions of nearly all men are pure; they all wish the same end
although with opposed means. General welfare, in which
particular welfare is necessarily found, is the object of their
desires. Some can see it only in the exercise of a free will,
and others only in the stability of an established order. Some
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seek a midway state equally mixed with volitive movement
and prophetic repose, progression and stability, liberty and
necessity. It is the great work of politics. Although I am
quite convinced that this great work is impossible independent
of Providence which gives it, nevertheless I shall not cease,
after having spoken of simple governments, from examining
the manner by which these governments can be modified by
mingling with each other; and I shall try to show what is
the presumable hope, good or bad, that can be conceived
from their diverse modification. I shall not fear in this
examination to approach the difficult question of which I
have spoken: that of knowing if monarchical and republican
governments can be allied in the absence of Theocracy; and
if they are, what is the political jurisdiction that could be
applied to them in a constitutional monarchy. Volitive
and prophetic men, named today Liberals and Royalists
occupied in seeking this jurisdiction, will know my thought
in this regard and will judge of it.

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 SEVENTH BOOK

I have said in advance in my last chapter of the preceding

book what I am about to accomplish in this one. It only
remains for me to develop my thoughts.

457

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 CHAPTER I

POLmCAL INFLUENCE OF THE THREE GREAT POWERS OF THE

UNIVERSE UPON MEN AND GOVERNMENTS

AT important
the present time, man has arrived at one of the most
epochs of the Social State where, according
to the part that he takes, a long sequence of prosperity or
of misfortune will be decided for him. None of his steps
is indifferent. He is at present too old, so to speak, in
civilization, not to be responsible for his errors. Experience
should have taught him; and after the violent shocks which
he has experienced, even since eight centuries, it is no longer
permitted him to say that he is absolutely ignorant of the
essence of things and that he cannot distinguish good from
evil. One pities a child who bums his finger in the flame of
a candle, who wounds himself trying to put his arm through
a pane of glass; but a youth would be laughed at who would
do such things. There is an age where the child wears
a tumbling cap, where he is led by leading-strings, where
little wire guards are placed before the windows and fire-
places; but when he is grown up, he no longer needs such
safeguards which would be not only ridiculous but annoying
and harmful.
Men, be no longer children; know the extent of your
strength and the nature of things; and, having ceased to fall
into puerile digressions, do not reach out your hand to grasp
the moon, and cease troubling yourselves with idle tales. I
have just unveiled your annals before you. Be assured
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46o Hermeneutic Interpretation
that it is not without reason I have done it. I know well
that you will doubt most of the things I have related; but
examine their connecting links and do not hasten to decide.
You are called to high and noble destinies, why do you fear
to fulfil them? The Empire of Rama of which I have
spoken to you seems like a vision. You cannot imagine that
there has existed a time when the entire earth and all the
men who inhabited it formed one and the same nation,
speaking the same language, having the same laws, the same
customs, and whose peoples, submitted to the same sacerdotal
and royal government, adored the same God, and respected
the same prince. This is, however, true. If it were not
so, how would you explain the existence of a primitive lan-
guage whose debris, diffused through a thousand diverse
dialects, has struck with admiration all the philological
savants? How would you understand the astonishing
relations of decimal numeration, of duodecimal mensura-
tion, of classification of the stars by asterisms? Come,
leave your gothic caves, for it is thus that Bacon calls the
prejudiced, and see that there is nothing impossible in what
I have said, but that there is even nothing so natural. Why
should men live forever isolated and penned in, always
mistrusting, always at war with each other? Is there not
in the depths of their hearts a universal sentiment of good-
will which draws them together? Do not doubt it; man is a
universal being, cosmopolitan in his nature. He is isolated
only when degrading himself. The love of a hut is no doubt
far from that of the Universe; but the sentiment is the same.
The difference is only in extent. It is by transporting this
sentiment from a hut to a hamlet and from a hamlet to a
city and from a city to a state and from a state to an empire
and from an empire to the Universe, that man, at first cen-
tred in himself, expands, grows, and becomes universalized.
Rousseau has assumed that the sentiment thus extended
lost its intensity. Rousseau is mistaken in this as in many
other things. He has confused the love of birthplace with

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 National Enthusiasm
love of country. The birthplace rests on one point; the
country is wherever the soul can exercise all its activity.
There is between the effects of these two sentiments the
same difference which exists between homesickness and
national enthusiasm. National enthusiasm acquires as
much more activity as the nation is greater; homesickness
becomes more profound as the country is smaller. A cer-
tain Greek philosopher, being reproached for not loving his
country sufficiently, looking at the sky replied: "You are
mistaken, I love it infinitely." This philosopher extended
his country beyond even visible things. Perhaps he would
not have spoken so well as Demosthenes or Cicero in the
public place; but he would have acted better than these two
orators at Chreronea and in Sicily. Socrates did not once
mount to the tribune to discuss public affairs, as he himself
said, but he refused at the peril of his life to obey the orders
of the thirty tyrants who oppressed Athens and died so as
not to violate her laws.
Socrates and the philosopher of whom I have spoken
first were providential men; Demosthenes was a volitive
man, as was Cicero; Philip of Macedon and Cresar, dictator
of Rome, were prophetic men. Considered as members of
a political society, the men who are something can be placed
in one of these three classes, and, according to the amount
of enthusiasm, force, or talents, in the first rank of these
classes; or indeed in the lower rank, in descending to the
crowd which is grouped around them and follows their
movements. Sometimes the opinions of these men are
decisive and their colours pronounced; at other times, they
mitigate them, they adopt a middle course, and thus place
themselves between the different classes. Wheri the opin-
ions of these men are pronounced, the first are called Theo-
crats, the second Republicans, and the third Monarchists.
Hence, three principal forms of government, in which domi-
nate exclusively the three great powers that rule the Uni-
verse: Providence, the Will of Man, and Destiny. These

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forms, when they are pure, constitute pure Theocracy, pure
Republic, and pure Monarchy.
The Will of Man is properly animistic and free, and its
seat is in the universal or the particular soul, according as
the man whom it moves is considered universal or parti-
cular; but this Will can as well be placed in the intelligence
as in the instinct, usurping there the place of Providence
or ruling Destiny there; and then Theocracy is corrupted
and the Republic takes aristocratic or emporocratic forms.
Providence is properly spiritual and inspiring, and its
seat is in the intelligence; but although it has laid down the
laws of liberty and necessity which rule the Will and Destiny,
and although it has imposed upon itself the obligation of
never violating them, it can, nevertheless, by means which
are its proper means, ever new, ever unknown, which it
never divulges and which no one can penetrate beforehand,
determine these laws towards the end which it has proposed,
in such a way that, whatever the causes, whose existence the
Will freely calls forth, and the necessary and forced effects,
which Destiny brings about, this end is always attained.
Providence, evoked by one or the other of these powers,
consolidates their creations and communicates to them the
principle of life which nothing but it could possess.
Destiny, which resides in the universal or particular
instinct, is properly instinctive and necessary. The Will,
which dreads it, constantly produces it and augments its
strength in proportion as it exasperates its own. If it mingles
with the Will and dominates it, it creates a military empire;
if it is dominated by the Will, on the contrary, it produces a
demagogic tyranny. When, with the aid of the Will which
it has subjugated, it succeeds in usurping the place of Pro-
vidence, it produces the most terrible of governments,
absolute despotism.
Mter having stated these principles, which are only a
resume of what we already know, we shall enter upon their
developments.

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 CHAPTER II

PRINCIPLE OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT-WHENCE THE

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE COMES-HOW REPUBLICS
ARE FOUNDED- POSITION OF RELIGION IN .MODERN
REPUBLICS

A MODERN writer who is believed to have genius be-

cause he has l'esprit, and much wisdom, whereas he
has only science and talent, has said that the principle of
republican government was virtue. Forced to explain what
he understood by virtue, he said that it was the love of country.
This love of country does not resemble, in his opinion, that
of the Greek philosopher of whom I have spoken; it was a
much narrower sentiment, much more exclusive, in which
there was more pride than anything else; but, however that
may be, it is not true that the love of country, considered as
a virtue, is the principle of any government; it can be the
mainstay, no doubt, when this government is established;
but it is not a question here of knowing whether one prefers
a republican country to a monarchical or theocratic country;
each can have his own opinion in this respect, as Montes-
quieu had his; the question is of knowing what will cause
this love. Now I say that it will be the Will of Man, when
abandoned to its free will and rejecting all other dominion
than its own, that will declare itself sovereign in the Republic
and will dedicate to itself its self-esteem. Rousseau has
felt this truth strongly; he has seen that the general Will
constitutes the essence of the republican government, and
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464 Hermeneutic Interpretation
it is this that has made him proclaim the sovereignty of the
people as the sole principle of political right and the only
foundation of the Social State. But this is an error re-
ceived from the cradle and nourished by its prejudices; for,
in admitting the sovereignty of the people as a result of the
general Will, it is not this sovereignty which is the principle
but the Will which creates it; and if this Will is declared the
principle, who will dare say that this principle is the only
one in the Universe? If this was so, whence would have
come the obstacles which arrest it at every step and which
break it? Can a unique principle have opposites?
The mistake of Rousseau has been stating as a fact
what was a question and saying that the Social State has
only one principle, whereas it has three. It is true that one
of these principles which he has seen sanctions the sovereignty
of the people and its absolute liberty; this is the Will of Man,
irrefutable and free in its essence; but also Destiny equally
irrefutable and always compelled draws forced submission
from this same people; and Providence, irresistible in its
course, commands its voluntary submission and shows it, that
it is only by means of this submission, that it can evade
subjugation. It is therefore not a question of saying only
that the people is sovereign, it is a question of saying it is
inclined to become so and is always prevented from being so.
The Will of Man has conceived republics to realize the
illusory phantom of this sovereignty of the people.
In order that the establishment of a republic may take
place, it is necessary for a co-operation of circumstances to
favour it. It would certainly be in vain if some volitive
men, dreaming in their study of Utopian republics, should
foolishly imagine that any time is fitting for the execution
of their designs. There are times when a similar enterprise
is impossible. In order that it may be effected, it is always
needful that Destiny be vanquished, and it can never be
so except it is abandoned by Providence.
The history of the world proves that the most favourable

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 Triumph of Will over Destiny 465

moment for the foundation of a republic is that wherein

the colonies, driven away from their mother cities, separate
themselves, or when states, having become subjugated by
others, succeed in throwing off the yoke of their viceroys or
their governors. In this situation Destiny which dominates
the colony or the subjugated state, being only secondary,
is naturally more feeble and yields more readily to the Will.
It was under similar conditions that the republics of Greece
were formed, after that the Thracians were separated from
the Phrenicians, the Greeks separated themselves from the
Thracians. Carthage was at first a colony of the Tyrians
and Rome a colony of the Etruscans. We have seen in our
day the Swiss throwing off the yoke of the Austrians and
Holland that of Spain. More recently still the American
colonies of England have abandoned their mother country
and declared themselves independent. In all these occasions
the Will has triumphed over Destiny and has been able to
a certain point to enjoy its triumph.
But men who, deceived by these events, the conditions
of which they have not penetrated deeply, have imagined
themselves able to take them, for example to bring forth
similar ones not only in the colonies or in the subjugated
states, but in radical monarchies, have committed the
gravest errors and occasioned the greatest evils. This is
one of the capital faults of the Will. This fault has de-
pended principally upon the ignorance of historians and
politicians who have never known how to go back to causes
or establish the principles. The revolution attempted in
England under the veil of religion has not succeeded better
than that which has been consummated in France under
the veil of philosophy. The two republics founded with the
most formidable apparatus, cemented by the blood of two
unfortunate monarchs, have not for a moment sustained
the breath of Destiny; they have been crushed by two pro-
phetic men who used them as steps to reach the throne. I
seriously recommend volitive men to reflect upon these two
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events. If there are still any who regret a form of govern-
ment which flatters their passions, let them learn by these
two experiences that this absolute liberty after which they
sigh is absolutely impossible in the actual state of things
and that a republic, such as the Americans have at present,
cannot belong to Europe unless Europe consents to become
the conquest of America and to be one of its dependencies.
I do not believe that there exists a single European who
would wish to be called a republican at this price, but sup-
posing that there were one whose pride was exalted enough
to conform to such a humiliation, I must say to these men,
preoccupied with a fixed idea, that the American Republic,
founded upon shifting sands, lacks a basis and owes its
apparent stability only to the extreme weakness of its destiny,
which does not yet permit it to make foreign conquests;
and which, when it will be strong enough to permit this, will
surely be overthrown. I hope that this republic will find
occasion to found its institutions and its laws upon better
bases; but I am forced by the nature of this work to say to
it that the only thing which can give them stability, that is,
providential assent, is not there. It is in vain that the Will
of Man, always prompt to deify itself, should persuade its
despotic followers that its force is sufficient for everything;
this assertion would be contradicted by the history of all
ages.
Hear what Plato said in proposing his laws. He said
it was necessary to obtain the sanction of the oracle of Delphi.
Sparta, Athens, none of the Greek republics was constituted
without having the Divinity intervene in their constitution.
Rome had a sovereign pontiff whose influence was very
great in the beginning of this republic, since he could by a
word break up the assemblies of the people, suspend agri-
cultural societies, and arrest the most important affairs.
It is true that this influence diminished much afterwards;
but when it no longer existed the country of Cincinnatus
h~ become that of Sulla.

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 Religion and Modern Republics 467

Do not forget that the republican germs scattered in

America are the fruits of a political schism whose principal
aim has been to destroy sacerdotal authority. No sovereign
pontiff exists in the United States and cannot exist there,
unless one considers, according to the doctrine of the Quakers,
each member of the church capable of serving in it; a doctrine
so absurd that even today it is abandoned by its own follow-
ers. So that, by quite a strange inversion, it is possible in
this republic that all the citizens are religious without the
government having the least religion; that they are all pious,
even devout, virtuous, scrupulously upright, without the
government having the least piety, the least devotion, the
least virtue, the least probity. For the government is a
purely political being, which adopts the .sentiments of none
of its members, and which above all, in point of religion,
affects an absolute indifference. Now, as this government
has above it no spiritual power to which it owes account of
its conduct, and that even God does not exist for it, although
it may exist in different ways for each of its members, it
follows from this that it is really without religion in its
political constitution and that the law which constitutes it
and which emanates from it is atheistic, as one of the most
orthodox writers among the Catholics has judiciously
observed.
It is possible that there are men who find this state of
things exceedingly good, and who, profoundly imbued with
that maxim of vulgar politics that religion is made for the
people, regard as the masterpiece of governments the one
where that maxim is not only received in theory but in
practice; not only as followed in secret but adopted openly;
however, let them moderate a little their enthusiasm; for I
declare to them that such a government is a sterile govern-
ment incapable of ever producing anything great and destined
I say that God does not exist for such a government, speaking politically
always, because this government does not make the idea of God enter into
an;y of its political acts.

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to pass on earth without leaving there the least trace of its
existence. But, they will say to me, what matters it that
a state is religious provided the citizens have a religion?
Does it not suffice that each citizen is pious? Does not the
piety of each make the piety of all? No, it does not; and
this is why. It is because the state is not only a physical
being depending upon this relation of the physical existence
of its members, but an intellectual being besides, enjoying
a general intellectual existence, which is right for it, which
does not depend upon the particular intellectual existence
for its members, but upon its constitutive laws; and if these
laws are atheistic they can only give him atheism for prin-
ciple even when those who would have made them should
be the most pious of men.
Vulgar politics commit in this respect a grievous fault.
They imagine that the religion, which is individually scattered
among the mass of the people, suffices the nation, without
thinking that there is no essence of light arising above from
below, but, on the contrary, it must descend below from
above. If there were a choice between these two altema
tives, putting the force of religion either in the government or
in the people, one should not hesitate to put it in the govern-
ment; for religion is a principle of life and a light.
The two chapters where Montesquieu and Rousseau have
spoken of religion are the most false and the worst of all
their works. One sees, through the perplexities of their
diction and the obscurity of their thought, that they feel
alike that this is the point where their systems collapse.
They cannot entirely repel Truth which cries out to them
that no government can exist without religion; and never-
theless they deceive themselves and they deceive their
readers as much as they can, in order that the volitive or
republican law, which they have evidently put above all
others, may remain atheistic as they have made it. What
a contradiction! what a fatal error! they both wish the
republic and they do not feel that this form of government,

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 Ideas of Montesquieu and Rousseau 469
being incessantly menaced by dissolution, would need, more
than another, a superior power which would hold it in unity.
But religion not being able to enter into the republican
government without restricting there the sovereignty of the
people, their favourite idol, they like better to leave this
idol intact and run all. the other risks, founding this govern-
ment on a purely volitive law.
So be assured of one thing: the ancient republics, such
as those of Athens, Carthage, and Rome have been able, by
favour of the vital principle which they have received from
their origin, to live five or six centuries; but that political
life, already very short, will be greatly shortened in the
modern republics where this principle is not admitted.

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 CHAPTER III

THE WILL OF MAN PUT ABOVE PROVIDENCE IN THE REPUBLICS

-MEASURES WHICH IT TAKES TO DOMINATE DESTINY-
ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY-DIFFERENCE OF THIS
SLAVERY FROM THAT OF FEUDAL SERVITUDE AND MILI-
TARY CAPTIVITY-REFLECTIONS UPON THIS

THEremain
Will of Man, which has made so many efforts to
absolute master of the universe, has finally
estranged Providence completely from the form of govern-
ment which belongs to it. The modem republics which
are founded or which have tried to be founded under its
influence have not only thrown off the yoke of sacerdotal
authority, but have even reduced this authority to being
considered no more than an ordinary institution, whose
members, subjected to the sovereignty of the people and
dependent on it as all its agents, ought to receive a recom-
pense similar to other civil or military officers; so that the
delegates of Providence have become those of the people
and have been paid to continue certain ceremonies of the
cult to which it was accustomed. In the states where one
has wished to admit priests to the number of representatives
of the nation, which has been often very difficult on account
of the conditions of fortune which have been demanded,
these priests no longer being admitted as priests, but only
as citizens on account of one of the consequences of the voli-
tive law which has given place to this singular maxim: that
a man is a citizen before being a priest, which is assuredly
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 Domination of the Will of Man 471

not true, taking the name of citizen in the sense which

Rousseau gives it, for one is man before being citizen; and
since a man, following the reasoning process of this writer,
can never be bound by a contract to what he has not given
his approval, he can just as well choose to be a priest before
being a citizen as a citizen before being a priest.
But this passed in modem republics for a maxim so
irrefutable that even in the case of Geneva, whose consti-
tutions ought to have been theocratic if it had aimed to be
anything, this maxim showed its full import. The ministers,
outside of their consistories, had an influence no different
from that of the lowliest artisans; and when they were
members of the great or petty council they were associated
with linen drapers or watchmakers. This confusion of
powers was called equality of rights. At Venice, where the
spirit was wholly opposed to that of Geneva, opinion has
not differed on this point; which proves that it was neither
the diversity of the aristocratic or democratic forms, nor
that of opposed cults, which operated upon this, but the Will
of Man alone. This Will having wished to dominate Pro-
vidence had apparently dominated it easily enough.
It remained only to dominate Destiny; but this was a
little more difficult because the submission which Providence
demands before being free can be easily refused; whereas
the subjugation which Destiny threatens, being forced,
cannot so easily be eluded.
The ancient republics exhausted themselves in contriv-
ances more or less strong, more or less ingenious, to escape
from the fatality of Destiny; while, on the contrary, they
had left a comparatively easy access to the action of Pro-
vidence, in according much influence to the oracles of the
gods. Nothing more is necessary to give a high idea of their
knowledge and to prove that they recognized, at least in a
confused manner, the action of the three great powers of
the Universe. It is remarkable that the modems have acted
in an inverse manner in this respect. One would say in

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472 Hermeneutic Interpretation
reading their republican constitutions that, wholly imbued
with their power, they have believed themselves above all
fatality and have directed their efforts only to guarantee
religious influences. A priest seemed to them more formid-
able than a hundred soldiers, and a prophetess, as Mother
Theos, more pernicious than all the tricoteuses of the
Jacobins.
The strongest guarantee that the ancients had found to
assure the stability of the republics was the slavery of a part
of the people. The free men, called citizens were served
by the enslaved part of the people who cultivated the lands
for them and performed other hard duties. This terrible
means had a great hidden efficacy: slavery, in dividing the
population of a state into two parts, broke the course of
Destiny, and by this division deprived it of half of its forces;
for one feels that if a helot in Lacedrem.on were endowed
with any animistic faculties he could never disturb the
liberty of that city. The Will of Man, in creating this facti-
tious Destiny called slavery, had then taken possession of a
part of the power of Destiny which it had turned against it.
All men whom fate caused to be born among slaves, or whom
the Will forced there by its laws or by its ruses, were so
many victims whose sum of lost liberty was turned to the
profit of those who enjoyed it. The moderns who have not
this resource can only supply it by the great inequality of
fortunes, which creates misery and domestic service. But
the course of Destiny, far from being broken by this inequal-
ity, is only arrested a moment to be rendered more impetuous
afterwards; because republican laws sanctioning the equality
of rights, the poor men, whom nature has endowed with
audacious characters, seeing poverty the only obstacle to
their ambition, seek by all imaginable means to get out
of it and present to the factionists instruments as sure as
docile.
One should draw from what I have said this important
conclusion, that slavery is neither the work of Destiny nor

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 Military and Domestic Slavery 473

that of Providence; but assuredly the work of the Will alone,

which, as I have Said, creates an artificial Destiny to oppose
it to a real Destiny; and, having only a certain amount of
liberty to dispose of, deprives some men whom it abandons
to enrich some others whom it protects. It is therefore in
republics that slavery has been for the first time established
systematically and rendered legal by the laws which have
founded it. Before this time it was only the result of war,
and the vanquished enemy groaned under it. It had no
other law than that of the force which sanctioned it; so it
could not be called legal, as I have called that which had
existed in the republics. If one will reflect here, one will
see that the difference which existed between these two
conditions of slavery was enormous.
In military slavery, he whom the fate of arms submitted
to his enemy came under the yoke of force, obeyed by con-
straint, and took care not to make his obedience a duty, and
his duty a virtue. His master was obviously his enemy.
Force had subjected him, force could deliver him. Only a
victory of his compatriots was necessary to put him at
liberty. He did not form a particular caste; or when this
did happen, as in great conquests when entire nations were
subjected, then the feudal system was established and with
it the serfdom of the lands; but this was slavery of a cer-
tain form which had no relation with domestic slavery. A
serf was not a slave properly speaking; he was a man who,
having been deprived of his rights of property by the fate
of arms, recognized a territorial master and found himself
forced to devote to him a more or less considerable part of
his labour. At the time when the Goths invaded the Roman
Empire, domestic slavery which they found established
there modified somewhat the ancient feudalism of the
Celts and caused something of that slavery to enter there;
but notwithstanding this mixture, it was always easy to
distinguish a slave, properly speaking, from a serf and a serf
from a captive. Captivity was the result of war pure and

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474 Hermeneutic Interpretation
simple; it had no other guarantee than force. Serfdom was
the consequence of an agreement made between the victor
and the vanquished after which the vanquished consented
to abandon a part of his property to preserve the other.
Slavery was the effect of a law which man decreed upon
himself, and regulated when and how a citizen should be
deprived of his liberty, when and how he could sell himself
or be sold. In this sort of slavery, peculiar to republics,
th~ law which sanctioned the principle of it made a duty of
obedience and obedience became a virtue. A slave could
not without crime seek to recover his liberty by other means
than those authorized by the laws. The morals which from
childhood were inculcated in him were respect and even
love for his chains. One went so far as to tell him that
slavery was ennobled by the virtues of a slave; and that this
state had singular sweetness, all drawn from that internal
satisfaction which depends upon the accomplishment of his
duties; and, safe from cares and alarms which the exercise
of liberty draws with itself, a slave was often happier than
his master. Thus, by a bizarre inconsistency, it was neces-
sary in such a state of things that the legislator should
inspire both respect for the chains that one bore and horror
for those that one did not bear. He was obliged to do this
by the singular relationship which existed between slavery
and liberty and the inevitable force which drew from one
state to another. It is difficult to cite in Greece a man who
has not been a slave or who has not run the risk of becoming
one. Originally in the Roman Republic a father had the
right to sell his children three times. The insolvent debtor
became the slave of his creditor. At Athens the least de-
fault of payment of the tax involved the loss of liberty.
One knows that Xenocrates the successor of Plato, head of
the Academy, was sold in the public place and bought by
Demetrius of Phalerum. In this Greece, so proud of her
liberty, one could not pass from one city to another, sail
a moment on the seas which washed her shores, without

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 Further Reflections on Slavery 475
the risk of becoming a slave. The celebrated Diogenes
experienced this difficulty as well as a host of others.
It should be seen after these examples, that I could
greatly extend if I did not believe it useless to repeat things
that all the world knows, that the domestic slavery of repub-
lics must not be confused with the military slavery of empires,
nor with the territorial serfdom of feudal states. Nothing
resembles it less. Domestic slavery was, I repeat, the
effect of a fundamental law without which veritable repub-
lican government would not have been able to exist. I say
veritable because one is accustomed to confuse it with modem
emporocracy which differs essentially from it. This funda-
mental law not having been able to be renewed in Europe
since Christianity was established there, the absence of
domestic slavery has prevented and will always prevent the
consolidation of republics. One has seen that the consoli-
dation of England and that of France, to which their founders
had vowed eternity, has not attained a second five years.
It is after all by a favour of Providence that every kind
of slavery has disappeared. It would have been in vain to
wish to recall its principle in London as well as in Paris;
it would have been impossible. Something stronger than
the Will of Man would have opposed it. This Will, however,
acted in different times and armed itself with diverse means.
At London, it was adorned with the colours of religion and
pushed zeal to fanaticism; at Paris, it embraced the philo-
sophism of the century and carried incredulity to atheism.
One would have thought that what it did not dare on one
side it would dare on the other. Not at all. Religious
fanaticism and cynical philosophism meet upon this point,
that neither one nor the other has been able to call back the
principle of domestic slavery, which was, however, indis-
pensable to their designs.
If a reader is found whose sight is sufficiently resolute to
attain certain depths, here is an occasion for him to see how
Providence acts upon the Will of Man without in the least

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checking the law of liberty which it has been given. He
needs only to seek to discover the secret and powerful motive
which prevented the Puritans of England and the Jacobins
of France, so opposite in religious systems, from throwing
the chains of domestic slavery upon their enemies instead
of sending them to the scaffold; it was not force which they
lacked. Death was indeed at their orders; why not slavery?
The ancients would not have hesitated. The reason why
they did not do it is very difficult to explain. It can never-
theless be expressed in this logical formula: there are things
which the Will of Man, being able to will, does not wish to
will. The opposition which this Will experiences in its
own essence belongs to the course of universal things which
changes their character and which, for example, causes cap-
tives to be only prisoners of war for us, serfs only farmers,
and slaves, domestics. Endeavour to reflect upon this
point, politicians imbued with the prejudices of Montesquieu
or of Rousseau, and understand that where it is an impossi-
bility to wish for slaves, it is impossible to make pure
republics.

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 CHAPTER IV

OTHER MEASURES WHICH THE WILL TAKES TO DOMINATE

OVER DESTINY IN REPUBLICS: HOW THEY FAIL-AMAL-
GAMATION ATTEMPTED BETWEEN THE WILL AND DESTINY
IN MODERN REPUBLICS-oRIGIN OF EM.POROCRACY-
WHAT ITS MAINSPRING IS

BUTwould
this law of domestic slavery, this terrible law which
have forced Plato himself to restrain all his
republican virtues in the accomplishment of his duties of a
slave if lie had not been ransomed by Nicetes, this law which
dictated the manual of Epictetus, was not yet the only
means which the Will of Man had conceived to counter-
balance the fatality of Destiny always opposed to its action.
Athens had its famous law of ostracism by virtue of which
the one who arose above the others through too great talent
or celebrity was condemned to banishment. At Rome there
were rigid censors who forced each citizen to remain in his
rank and who chastised as breach of custom all demonstra-
tions of fortune or talent which could wound the common
people. As in this last republic the Will had not been able
to prevent Destiny from manifesting itself in the establish-
ment of a sort of senatorial aristocracy; they created tribunes
of the people to arrest any encroachments. The ephors of
Sparta had likewise been appointed to examine the conduct
of the two kings, or rather the two generals of that republic,
and to control all their acts. These precautions and many
others too long to mention did not prevent these republics
477

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from devouring each other and succumbing, before their
time, under the blows of Destiny. Notwithstanding the
laws of ostracism Athens experienced the tyranny of Pisis-
tratus; and Rome, often stained with blood by her tribunes,
did not escape the proscriptions of Sulla. The institution
of the dictator, which assured her safety as long as the Will
dominated Destiny, caused her downfall as soon as that
domination ceased.
In general, all the efforts of the ancients in the establish-
ment of the republican system tended to break everywhere
the influence of Destiny, that is, to arrange that nothing
sufficiently powerful could be presented whether in the
fatality of things or in the fatality of men, in order that the
Will should not have ready and sufficient means to destroy
it instantly. The legislators flattered themselves that they
constantly sustained that superiority of the Will over
Destiny; but they were mistaken on this point, that they
had counted on a permanence of unity in the action of the
Will which is not found there. It would be necessary, in
order that the republican system should last, that the voli-
tive power which founds it should not be divided; but, as it
is the essence of that power to divide itself, genius consists
in finding means which would prevent this division or which
would at least greatly retard it.
Although the moderns have acted in a manner opposed
to the ancients and although they judge themselves wiser,
they are, however, far from seeing where the difficulty
really is. They have believed that it was not so much
the question of dominating Destiny by opposing constantly
its progress, as by adroitly getting possession of its effects
to dominate it. They have conceived, without suspecting,
perhaps, the singular idea of forming a sort of fusion of the
Will and Destiny, an amalgamation of the liberty of the
one with the necessity of the other, so as to obtain an en-
semble which would be neither wholly prophetic nor wholly
volitive, but which would hold the essence of both. This

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 Influence of the Will and Destiny 479

idea, which has been realized in many ways, has appeared

the great work of politics, and some liberal minds, too much
preoccupied to see the defect of such a government, have
cried out, Miracle!
I have already remarked that among the extraordinary
things which took place in Europe at the time when the
political overthrow, caused by the downfall of the Empire of
Charlemagne, left to all the feudal members of this great
body the possibility of making themselves sovereigns in
their domains, there was a certain number of cities which,
not having any military chiefs in position to seize the author-
ity, fell into the hands of their ecclesiastical or civil chiefs
and formed under the laws of their bishops or their municipal
magistrates sorts of petty states, whose unusual government
without model in antiquity could not be compared to any-
thing. These cities, which were entitled imperial and which
wished to be protected by the emperors, pretended by an in-
conceivable whim to depend in no way upon these monarchs.
They finally withdrew completely from their jurisdiction
and took the name of republics. These so-called republics
which had nothing republican but their name were at first
feudal municipalities, and later real emporocracies 2 ; that is
to say, states where commerce, considered as one of the
motives of the government, is the leading factor in it. The
union of the Hanseatic cities effected in the middle of the
thirteenth century offered even a sort of grandeur; and these
cities should have claimed some sort of celebrity, if it had
been the essence of commerce to give other than riches
without eclat.
The greatest effort of emporocracy was made in Holland
when that country, having thrown off the yoke of the Span-
iards, offered the singular spectacle of a company of traders,
who, subjects on one hand and sovereigns on the other, were
reputed as receiving laws whereas they were giving them;
1 By the Treaty of Constance in 1183.

See note which terminates Chapter IV., Book Fifth.

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48o Hermeneutic Interpretation
and who, constituting a state within the state, displayed a
considerable maritime power, maintaining troops on land
and sea, declaring war or peace in their own name, and send-
ing afar their diplomatic agents, military and civil officers.
This institution imitated in England has succeeded per-
fectly there; whereas it has had no success in France. Some
political writers, among whom is Raynal, have bemoaned
loudly regarding the downfall of the French Company of the
Indies; but they have not seen that this institution did not
at all agree with the national spirit of the French which is
not mercantile, as I believe I have already said, but agricul-
tural. England has been able, by her East India Company,
to give to her government the extraordinary form which
it has, that form where the principal elements of monarchy
and of republic seem conjondus whereas they are only
m2tes and in which they had claimed to draw into the same
vortex Necessity and Liberty, Destiny and the Will of Man.
This is what I call an Emporocracy. It is the sort of
government of which I spoke just now, an object of the
admiration of some writers preoccupied with a fixed idea,
whose weakness they have not perceived. Montesquieu
is the first in France who has led the fashion on this point
and unfortunately Madame de Stael has followed him. I
am sorry for her in this. She was susceptible, through the
high faculties of her intelligence, of raising herself to nobler
conceptions. Rousseau has not been the dupe of appear-
ances; he has felt that this government so much lauded
did not realize any of the hopes which he had cherished. If
he considered it as republican, he saw the people without
liberty, without power, without consideration, without voice
in its own affairs, turbulent without object, servile without
need, delivered to a misery increasing more and more, which,
devouring the little virtue which was left, made it by turn
factious or venal. If he regarded it as monarchical he
saw a king without force, without authority, without gran-
deur, obliged to follow even in the interior of his palace the

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 Emporocracy
movement of his ministry, itself subordinate to that of a
parliament composed of the most heterogeneous elements
which, always floating between the fear of opinion and the
attraction of favour, never knew if it would want on the
morrow what it had wanted the day before.
But perhaps this government is aristocratic. Then if
one searches this aristocratic body, whose power, raised
above that of the people and of the king, is presented to the
imagination as a colossus, one sees with astonishment that
it is not thus. The House of Peers, which this body should
be, constrained by its equivocal position to follow the move-
ment of the ministry, gives it a force which it does not share;
for if it is the House of Peers which sustains it, it does not
create it; this prerogative belongs to the House of Commons
which, formed under the influence of the ministry, cannot
abandon it without exposing the state and without exposing
itself to the most violent catastrophes. One would say, after
this, that the government residing entirely in the ministry, this
ministry ought to be vested with an immense power; and
that if by chance it is conducted by an able prime minister,
this prime minister ought to be the most powerful potentate
in the world; but, not at all. This prime minister staggering
under an enormous burden, always exposed to the darts of
violent opposition which he is obliged to respect, although
it does not respect him, only progresses with extreme fatigue
towards an end which he could not fail without shame and
which he attains without glory. With whatever genius he
may be endowed, he cannot offer resistance to a lowering
of the public funds, which he has not foreseen. Bankruptcy,
occurring in the court, shakes his credit; a most important
transaction miscarries through the incapacity of a banker.
Accustomed to believe every man has his price, to traffic
with talent and even virtue, he lets himself be penetrated
with a profound distrust of humanity; and as he sees nothing
great about him he makes no effort to become so himself.
In the meantime, where is the force hidden then that
31

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482 Hermeneutic Interpretation
makes this maritime colossus move? This force is concealed
in its credit, and this is the magical mainspring which executes
these formidable movements which have astonished the world.
This is the commercial mainspring of which the ancients had
not the least idea; this is the marvellous invention of which I
have spoken and in which the contrivances of modem genius
are exhausted. Its sole presence announces an emporo-
cracy. It is the principle of this sort of government, as the
Will is that of republics and Destiny that of monarchies.
It is in credit that Liberty and Necessity are supposed to
be united. Its name, which signifies a thing to which one
adds faith upon the testimony of others, expresses perfectly
the sense which should be attached to it. This law which
rests upon material and physical objects, and which causes
a fictitious existence when it does not even exist, has also
its superstition and its fanaticism. Its superstition, in
that it admits for certain facts positive nullities, as when it
attaches a value to that which has none, or that it receives
as indubitable that which is more than hypothetical; its
fanaticism, in that it dissimulates to itself the emptiness of
its fantastic doctrines and that in its terror of ceasing to
believe that which would reduce it to nothingness it makes
more and more violent efforts to appear to believe what it
doubts and to force others to believe it.
This physical mainspring, which in all emporocratic
governments takes the place of intellectual principles which
1 Notice that the sense given to the word credit is here more extended than
this word ordinarily is. I do not understand by the word credit merely the
power which a government can have to borrow sums of money more or less
considerable, but that sort of security which it inspires on account of its
foreign supports and resources, which one can see or believes he can see in it.
The credit of the English Government does not come from itself, but is re-
ceived from the commercial power which is outside of it. An interior credit,
as that of a constitutional monarchy, France for example, cannot serve as
mainspring for this monarchy, for the reason that the thing moved and the
thing moving cannot be the same. Emporocratic credit must then be exterior
and must come to the government from a power, independent in some way of
it, that it supports and by which it is supported.

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 Mainspring of Emporocracy 483

are lacking there, makes up only indifferently for their

action. It is the work of the Will and brings about in these
governments, constituted by the hand of man, the same effect
that the mainspring of a watch brings about on this sort of
clock; it makes all the machinery go and causes an artificial
movement which, at first glance, appears that of Providence
or that of Destiny; but this movement is anything but that;
it must, on the contrary, constantly fight against them and
oppose its artificial strength and be limited to their essential
strength without limit; which cannot be done without ne-
cessitating at some time or other a new tension, a winding
up of the mainspring by which this machine is more or less
set in motion and which finally wears it out and destroys it.
What pleases the volitive man above all in this artificial
government is his work; he admires himself in the work of
his hands and, without foreseeing the disadvantages in it,
proclaims its advantages. When he is made to observe
that Destiny there is forced and that Providence is absent,
he responds with pride: what matters that? everything pro-
ceeds none the less. No doubt everything proceeds, but
everything proceeds as in a machine where a skilful artist
might have copied the movements of the Universe. You
have a clock very well made, by which for a certain time
in the absence of the sun itself you can calculate the height
of that celestial body above the horizon, and knowing very
nearly what time it is, regulate your domestic affairs. But
tell me, is there a man ignorant enough to prefer this copy,
however perfect it may be, to the Universe itself and not to
feel that such a machine is admirable only by comparison,
and that its very existence proves another by which it must
be regulated? What would you say of a clockmaker, who
would calmly assure you because he had made a good watch
that one can henceforth do without the sun for measuring
time and determining the return of the seasons? You would
laugh him to scorn no doubt and send him to the madhouse.
The language of the haughty mechanician would not differ,

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484 Hermeneutic Interpretation
however, from that of the insensate politician who, seeing
with admiration a mechanical government with which one
has succeeded in supplying for a time the action of Provi-
dence and in constraining that of Destiny, would propose to
you to do without these two powers forever and establish
a similar government everywhere.
But it would be in vain for you to wish to follow the
ideas of this politician by voluntarily closing your eyes to
the evidence; you could not do it. The mainspring of
emporocratic government, the credit, is not of a nature to
be forged everywhere, nor indifferently placed. A nation
essentially mercantile must furnish the elements of it and
the maritime power must strengthen it or wind it up when
it is run down. The places where this mainspring is shown
with the greatest force and advantage have always availed
themselves of this double prerogative. The cities of Italy
which have possessed it, those of Flanders, Holland, England,
and finally the United States of America, have been or are
still commercial and maritime states. When one is content
to consider France superficially, and when one sees her only
under certain geographical relations, one can believe that
she is also susceptible of admitting this mainspring and of
becoming an emporocracy as Holland has been or as England
and the United States still are; but if one wishes to examine
further the nature of her territory and above all penetrate
the particular mind of her inhabitants, one will see that she
is agricultural on the one side and warlike on the other,
which gives the alternatives of repose and movement, which
striking the eyes of the observer have often caused the
French to be taxed with inconstancy. Although agriculture
leads to commerce and warlike habit to marine force, neither
commerce nor marine force can ever be the aim of the French,
but only their means either of augmenting the products of
their agriculture, or extending their conquests so as to
attain either the repose which fortune gives or the glory
which victory procures. Of all the European peoples there

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 Commercial and Maritime Credit 485

is not one which cherishes so much pleasure or glory. These

tendencies which could make her adopt the emporocratic
mainspring, if this mainspring was of the nature to present
itself all made, have prevented and will eternally prevent her
from having sufficient perseverance to create it. Credit,
such as I understand it,' is not a thing which springs up
suddenly in the midst of a nation; it is not the fruition of a
transitory enthusiasm; it is the product of a slow and de-
liberate calculation of which the French people are incapa-
ble. This people can certainly be infatuated for a moment
with the system of Law and give to a trifling bit of paper tlie
nominal value of coin; but the chances to which it is exposed
must be rapid. If it has time to reflect, all illusion is de-
stroyed. Reflection shatters belief in it; and in that which
has relation to emporocratic credit, on the contrary, it
must strengthen it.
An agricultural and military state inclines necessarily
towards Destiny, which monarchy calls there. A violent
effort of the Will is necessary that the republic may be
established. If it is established as among the Greeks and
Romans it is always under the form of a pure republic, in
favourable circumstances, and with the conditions which I
have indicated. If, in such a state, one wished suddenly to
create an emporocracy, the mainspring which one would
put there to move the machinery, exposed to the attacks of
Destiny, would be broken in a short time.

See preceding note.

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 CHAPTER V

PJUNCIPLE OF :MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT-DESTINY OOMI-

NATESTBERETHE~~SGOVERNMENTISNATURAL

TO MAN, ESPECIALLY TO :MAN OF YEU.OW COLOUR-

WHITE RACE INCLINES TOWARDS THE REPUBLIC: WHY-
ORIGIN OF THE I:MPEIUAL AND FEUDAL GOVERNMENT
-PRINCIPLE OF THEOCRATIC GOVERNKENT-:MOVEJrlENT
OF THE THREE POWERS

MONTESQUIEU, who had established Virtue as a

principle of republics, wishes that of monarchies to
be Honour i so that the duties that a citizen fulfils in one of
these governments through love of country, in another a
subject accomplishes them by a certain sentiment of self-
esteem which makes him find glory in his obedience. All
this is somewhat vague; and, as I have already remarked,
does not touch the principle which creates the government,
but certainly the consequence which follows. Republics
have their principle in the Will of Man which dominates
Destiny; monarchies have theirs in Destiny which dominates
the Will of Man.
When the Will absolutely dominates Destiny, the sover-
eignty of the people is recognized and with it the liberty and
equality of the citizens. No one has the right to invoke the
past to create a future; all the offices are elective; there
exists no rank, no distinction, no privilege outside of those
which the office gives. The Will which disposes of every-
thing can build everything and destroy everything; it brings
486

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 Will and Destiny in Governments 487
all its force, so that Destiny may be nothing and that all its
political consequences may be nullified.
When, on the contrary, it is Destiny which absolutely
dominates the Will, men are born what they ought to be,
masters or subjects, unequal in rights, in fortune as in power.
Their future is always a consequence of the past. Heredity
of the throne is the first law of Destiny, that from which all
others receive their form. The lines of demarcation which
divide men by castes are firmer as Destiny is stronger.
Those who command are born to command; those who obey
are born to obey. Destiny which dispenses ranks never
suffers the Will of Man to invert them. All the institutions
which it creates are directed towards this unique end, of
preventing this Will from changing in any way the estab-
lished order and of being anything by itself.
Such would be the general forms of pure republics and
monarchies if it were possible for the Will to dominate
absolutely Destiny or for Destiny to dominate absolutely
the Will. But this absolute dominion of one power over
another is impossible. Providence which guards the main-
tenance of the Universe never permits it, because, if on the
one hand the Will remained quite triumphant, it would
throw all in confusion by too much movement; and on the
other hand if Destiny remained alone victorious, it would
make all things retrograde by too much repose. Therefore
these two principles must be mingled to modify each other
and correct what would be too vehement or too stationary
in their action if it were abandoned to its own nature.
Now that we understand the principles of these two
principal forms of government, republic and monarchy, we
must draw from this knowledge a simple and natural induc-
tion; which is, that the republic which depends upon the
Will of Man has always need of an effort to establish itself,
while the monarchy which follows from Destiny, being a
result of the force of things, establishes itself alone and has
only need of the development of the Social State to be de-

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veloped with it. I beg you to observe and consider that the
history of the world confirms it. A republic is always the
work of a revolution. The Will of Man which has created
it cannot abandon it an instant to itself lest it perish or fall
back into the monarchy whence it originated. Monarchy
is therefore the natural government for man, the prophetic
government which Destiny gives to him.
When theWestern Hemisphere was discovered,-to which
I have given the name of Columbian on account of Columbus
who was the first to land there-royalty was established
wherever civilization had advanced sufficiently to bring it
about. There were the Caciques at Haiti, the Incas in
Peru, and a sort of Emperor in Mexico. The only two regu-
lar governments which were constituted on the continent
were monarchies. That of Peru had received from Asia
its theocratic fonns and that of Mexico, its imperial and
feudal fonns from Europe.
It is noticeable that the peoples of Asia have been from
all time governed by kings, and that it is only with great diffi-
culty that the republican fonns have been admitted among
them; which indicates in the Yellow Race, the first that has
inhabited this part of the earth, a tranquil social develop-
ment, purely prophetic and exempt from the violent shocks
which have agitated that of the White Race in Europe; for
we must not forget what we have seen in the commencement
of this work. The Borean Race, placed at the dawn of its
civilization in eminently difficult circumstances, attacked
by the Sudeen Race, warlike and powerful, had to display
extraordinary means and a force of Will which could only
save it from destruction by giving it an irresistible ascend-
ancy over the fatality of Destiny. This ascendancy, which
it then took and which it has preserved with more or less
energy among the different peoples which have issued from
it, has stamped them with a distinct character, more or less
decisive, but always indelible. If this race could have been
developed without inconsistency as happened undoubtedly

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 Action of the Three Powers 489

to the Yellow Race; if it had entered into the Social State

and if it had slowly passed through the diverse phases, it is
certain that it would not have differed essentially from the
other races in its social forms, and the pure monarchical
government would have been its natural government; but
the too precocious exasperation which was given to its Will,
by the dangers to which it was exposed, changed this direc
tion and forced Destiny to give way in all its consequences.
Instead of a monarchical government it had an imperial
government in which free will manifested its force by the
election of chiefs. Castes were formed in its midst; but
whereas they were formed in consequence of an extraordinary
mixture of prophetic Necessity and volitive Liberty, they
participated in these two principles and were not purely
monarchical but imperial and gave rise to that mixed govern
ment which has been named feudal. It is useless for me to
repeat in this respect all that I have said. It is well known
how the Borean Race, after having been oppressed for some
time by the Sudeen, took the upper hand and spread afar
over all the earth and principally in Asia, where, by the
influence of Providence which it recognized, it founded under
the leadership of Rama the last Universal Empire. I have
shown sufficiently that such an empire could be only theo
cratic. I have indicated the simple and majestic forms of
this admirable social edifice, as much as the obscurity and re
moteness of the ages have permitted me; I have related with
what great splendour it had shone before reaching the epoch
of its decadence; I have described this epoch and I have
shown first the singular causes which had brought about its
downfall. In exposing its retrograde movement and disso-
lution, I have not failed to repeat many times that the three
principles united in it had become separated, and that each
of them had retaken its own movement. Now Destiny,
which was found to be the strongest in Asia during the first
development of the Yellow Race, had returned to its first
monarchical forms; and the Will of Man, which was exasper

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ated in Europe from the beginning of its civilization to pre-
serve the White Race there, after having passed through the
republican forms which belonged exclusively to it, had
fallen again into the imperial and feudal forms which are a
fusion of the two principles. But at last, after an infinite
number of vicissitudes, of which I have briefly indicated
the principal ones, the Universal Empire, entirely dissolved
and reduced to its primitive elements, tended to become
reformed, and Destiny and the Will of Man laboured each
on his own side at this great work: Destiny in reconstructing
monarchies, and the Will of Man in organizing republics.
Each of these principles strove, by means of prophetic orvoli-
tive men whom it influenced, to remove as far as it could the
contrary principle, so as to obtain entire dominion; and this
tended on the side of Destiny to establish absolute despotism,
and on the side of the Will, absolute democracy, with all
the difficulties which are attached to these two extreme
governments and which draw with them always anarchy
whether military or civil.
In the meanwhile, Providence was not idle; in the midst
of the two other contending principles and without openly
thwarting the laws of Necessity and Liberty to which it is
submissive, it tempered their asperity by invisible means,
which, notwithstanding their apparent weakness, were
neither less efficacious, nor less strong. Men, whom it
inspired and whom it threw into the midst of the volitive
or prophetic vortex, abated its vehemence and according to
their position gave rise to opposed institutions which now
offered powerful barriers to the usurpation of democracy
and then arrested the disastrous effects of despotism. I
have named several of these providential men and have
entered as much as the subject of this work has permitted
me into details of their character and their doctrine. I
have by no means named them all. A great number of
them has remained even unknown. Some of them, for
reward of the services which they rendered to humanity,

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 Providential Ternary 491
have received from the men whom they have annoyed,
mistrust, outrage, and even death; but these passing evils
often came under the notice of Providence, which well
knew bow to find for its envoys recompenses worthy of their
labours, their sufferings, and their virtues.
Providence which proceeds always towards unity is the
principle of theocracies as Destiny is of monarchies and
the Will of Man of republics. It gives all religious ideas and
presides at the foundation of all cults. There is nothing
intellectual which does not come from it. It is the life of
all. Destiny gives the form and the consequence of all
principles. There is nothing legitimate outside of it. The
Will possesses the movement which gives progression.
Without it nothing would be perfected. The aim of Pro-
vidence is, in politics, the Universal Empire; that of Destiny,
the triumph of Necessity and the consolidation of what is;
that of the Will, the triumph of Liberty and the realization
of what can be. Among these three principles, two have
been for a long time engaged in violent combat. Destiny
and the Will, exasperating by turn the men who depend '
upon them, have displayed the most formidable forces against
each other. Providence, long unrecognized in their midst,
bas always softened their blows and prevented any from
being mortal. The greatest triumphs which these two
powers have gained over each other have been transitory
and have not brought about the results that each expected.
After one of the greatest shocks of which the history of the
world makes mention, the men enveloped in the two vor-
texes find themselves face to face for the first time since long
ago and are plainly classified in setting up the colours which
have made them easily recognized. The men of Destiny
and those of the Will are there. Some demand to stop at
what is necessary and legitimate; others tend towards what
is possible and legal. The obscurity of these words which
they do not define permits them to confuse them, and in their
ignorance of the underlying principles they are astonished

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at not being comprehended. A few providential men
placed in their midst speak to them without being under-
stood. A great number keep silence and await the issue.
Since I have made myself the interpreter of these men who
are silent, I will say to those who give themselves to cruel
dissensions, that the only means of bringing peace among
them and of attaining the end which they no doubt alike
propose, is the general good; that is, by recognizing Pro-
vidence, and instead of making one sole principle domi-
nate, as they pretend, to consent, on the contrary, to their
being blended in the providential ternary. I will indicate
shortly how this can be done, after having examined with
impartiality if this can be avoided.

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 CHAPTER VI

THE CAUSES WHICH ARE OPPOSED TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF

PURE DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY-TERROR FAILS THE
DESPOT, AS SLAVERY THE DEMAGOGUE-oRIGIN OF CON-
STITUTIONAL .MONARCHY-DISTINCTION BETWEEN WHAT
IS LEGITIMATE AND WHAT IS LEGAL

T HERE is this notable difference between the actual

epoch and ancient time, that knowledge being in-
creased by the inevitable effect of the universal progress of
things, these things, although respectively the same, being
found more enlightened, appear to change their nature; and
that the Will of Man which has sought them and which finds
itself facing them, being able to wish them, does not wish
them, however, on account of the consequences which these
things bring about; consequences which formerly this Will
would not have seen and which it sees clearly today. This
reflection that I have already made when discussing domes-
tic slavery, which, having been able to establish itself recently
among us, is not, however, established there, applies to many
other things equally important.
To continue : if the establishment of the pure republic
brings about necessarily, as I have shown, domestic slavery
of a part of the citizens, and if the Will of Man, which un-
ceasingly tends towards that republic, can not or will not
desire this slavery, the result will be that this Will will be
found in contradiction with itself; it will become divided
and will not attain the aim of its desires. And if the estab-
493

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lishment of the absolute monarchy which is called Despotism
exacts certain necessary severities towards which Destiny
inevitably pushes, and if these severities encounter a violent
opposition in opinion which does not permit them to be ful-
filled, then Destiny, provoked by itself, will be broken and
the prophetic establishment will not take place. Open, I
pray you, Machiavelli, and see what he counsels his despotic
prince. He principally advises cruelty. When he conquers
a new empire, he wishes that the blood of its former masters
be entirely drained; that no proud head be allowed to domi-
nate, and in the manner of Tarquin he passes a bloody scythe
over all that has risen above the vulgar; and as for the mass
of people who could have enjoyed republican liberty, he
wishes that it be dispersed or destroyed. "The surest way,"
he said, ''is to destroy it; for the republican peoples, naturally
spiteful, are inclined to vengeance and never lose the memory
of their ancient liberty."
Thus, no republic .without slavery, no despotic state
without murder. The republicans who cannot make slaves
and the despots who cannot sacrifice their rivals, were they
their dearest friends and their brothers, will never obtain
either the pure Republic or absolute Despotism. Liberty
must give chains and autocracy command death. There,
it is the misery of a part of the people which assures the
prosperity of the other; here, it is the terror of the nobles
which makes the surety of the monarchs. If a political
conqueror enters upon a career with fortune equal to courage,
let him dare as Ninus or Cyrus, Attila or Timour, to deliver
to death the royal families which he has dethroned; let him
understand how to send the flame of incendiarism throughout
the provinces, overthrow the capital cities, and drench the
debris and ashes in the blood of their inhabitants; then he
can reign as despot. But, you say that such a conqueror
will not dare in our day to commit such atrocities; that his
nobler ideas will dissuade him from it; and that even if he
cherished such cruelty in his heart, to abandon himself to

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 Machiavelli Advises Cruelty 495
such furors, he would lack instruments for his crimes.
Very well! I know all that as you do, because I have known
the opinion of the century and because I have appreciated
its force; but I also know that a conqueror who will obey
this opinion will betray his destiny, will connive with his
eternal enemy which is the Will, and will lose all the results
of his conquests. He could not do otherwise, no doubt;
but then, to what good to undertake conquests, if it is to
lose them inevitably? To what good, to incline towards
pure Republic, towards absolute Despotism, if opinion, to
which the republicans, as the despots are obliged to submit,
makes them impossible?
Here is precisely what I wished to make you understand
in commencing this chapter. That, someone will reply to
me, is all understood; besides experience has just shown it
in such a manner that it is not permitted any one to doubt
it; it is even the reason for which one no longer seeks any-
where to realize the idea of a simple government, whether
republican or monarchical; but there is a tendency, on the
contrary, to seek mixed governments, which present the
advantages of these two kinds of government without having
any of their disadvantages. This is, as I have already said,
the great work of politics; it is a question of uniting two
extremes and of making, as the alchemistic adepts pretend
to teach, fire and water become friends. However, the proof
that one has not yet found the means of uniting them, and
that the old enmity of the two principles manifests itself
as strongly as that of the two elements, is, that the men
called liberals, who are those whom I call volitive, and the
men who are designated as royalists, whom I call prophetic,
can agree to nothing between them, although they all appear
to be asking for the same thing: a constitutional monarchy.
They cannot agree among themselves and this is why: it
is because the volitive liberals wish that everything be de
facto and legal in this constitutional monarchy, and the pro-
phetic royalists, that everything be legitimate and de jure.

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Now what is de facto and legal is composed of a Destiny
subject to the Will; and what is legitimate and de jure an-
nounces a Will subject to Destiny. Let us try to determine
what should be understood by these words which are applied
less in determining than in confusing.
The men of Will, volitive or liberal, consider things only
as isolated facts without any connection, seeing in man
only man, in a king only a king, in a magistrate only a
magistrate, without admitting as a thing existing by itself,
either humanity or royalty or magistracy. These terms
offer them only an abstract idea which is not attached to
real existence. If they utter the word royalty, for example,
they do not understand a thing pre-existent to a king, deter-
mining it to be a royal potentiality, but only a thing which
issues from this being and which is designated as the dignity,
pure and simple. Thus for them the king exists before
royalty and creates it. Royalty is therefore only an ab-
straction and the king a fact, which when it is recognized
as such by the people, in whatever manner, becomes legal.
But the prophetic men see all this in another manner:
they admit universals, which the volitive men reject; and
consider things not as isolated facts, but as links of a chain,
which, without being the chain itself, yet constitute it. For
them humanity, royalty, magistracy are things which they
conceive as pre-existent to men, kings, magistrates, and
placed by Destiny to determine the necessary existence.
In the same manner, for example, as one can conceive that
an army, when it is decreed with power of being, will neces-
sarily involve the existence of a certain number of soldiers.
These soldiers will not be isolated facts considered as sol-
diers, but facts co-ordinated to this end, of forming a whole
which results from them if one wishes it, but from which
also results, if one considers it as one ought, the primordial
and creative idea which has decreed the army. Now that
royalty, for example, may be a thing decreed beforehand
by Destiny or by quite a different superior power, even by

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 Prophetic and Volitive Men 497
God, put here in place of Destiny, it is that which no really
prophetic man, no pure royalist can doubt, without being
a contradiction to himself. This man will always put
royalty before the king and will only consider as legitimate
the king born in royalty. It will be in vain for a king born
outside of royalty to be legal, according to the volitive men;
the prophetic will always regard him as illegitimate and will
distinguish de jure from de facto; the former will always be
for him the order of Destiny and the necessary consequence
of an anterior universal law; whereas he will see in the latter
only the usurpation of the Will, and the consequence of a
particular posterior law.
If what I have just said is well understood, it will be seen
clearly what distinguishes a prophetic man from a volitive,
and a monarchist from a republican; the difference will be
made between what is legitimate according to some, and
legal according to others; and it will be seen that they can
never be agreed upon anything. Let us suppose that in
the constitutional monarchy, where they appear to be united,
there may be question of establishing a nobility as interme-
diary body between the monarch and the people, prophetic
men will see this institution all established if it exists, and
impossible in its establishment if it does not exist. They
will conceive that one may, if strictly necessary, augment it
in mass but not create it in principle; for although they
may accord to the king the faculty of making a noble, they
will never accord to him that of making a nobility. The
volitives, on the contrary, will believe it easier to create a
nobility than to make a noble; for they will confuse nobility
with aristocracy and will believe that it is by abstraction
that the generic name is given to all men who possess the
offices. According to them, the king will be the highest
noble and the mayor of the village the lowest. They will
be able to see legality in the titles but they will never see
legitimacy. A noble who relies only upon the legitimacy of
his nobility will be nothing in their eyes, if he does not
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join to it legality of fact, that is to say, employment. The
prophetic men will think quite the contrary upon this point
and mock the noble de facto, who will not be it de jure; that
is to say who will be legal without being legitimate.
And if, by a condescendence commanded by imperious
circumstances, the men of Will, the liberals, proclaim the
legitimacy of the throne as the conservative principle of
monarchies, as in truth it is when it is understood, they will
know better than to see it where it really is, in the royalty
which makes the king, as nobility makes the noble; but they
will place it in its simple positive demonstration-in heredity
so that the people being able to see it can seize and render
it legal by the adhesion of its will; that which is always to
destroy on one side what is built on the other, by submitting
to a power that which belongs to the opposed power. It is
not heredity which makes legitimacy; it is legitimacy which
sanctions heredity. If legitimacy depended upon heredity,
the people could indeed submit it to their examinations and
render it legal by regulating the mode of this heredity; but
as it results solely from royalty and from birth in this
royalty, according to the order of time, the people have
nothing to see there; for royalty is one and time has not
two ways of proceeding.
So then, men of Will and of Destiny, or as they are called
today, liberals and royalists, are found drawn along by the
universal progress of things to the singular situation, which
neither of them can absolutely tritimph over, by arriving at
the end determined by their nature, nor be united together
to constitute a permanent mixed government; for in order
that both triumph absolutely, it is necessary that they should
be able to bring about a pure democracy or an absolute
despotism, which is rendered impossible by the opinion
which repels the only means of attaining this result: the
slavery of some or the murder of the others; and for them
to be united, a median line would be necessary, of which
neither wishes to admit the action nor recognize its efficacy.

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 Axioms of Royalists and Liberals 499

They prefer in confusing the sense of some doubtful words,

to deceive themselves, to use stratagem with their adver-
saries, and to recommence a hundred times the ever useless
attempts. They do not perceive that, notwithstanding the
disguise of their discourse, the substance of their thoughts
is always shown; because this substance is indelible and
because Destiny or the Will, which unwittingly influences
them, makes them receive as fundamental truths these
opposed axioms,-to the royalists : Si veut le Roi, si fleut la
loi; and to the liberals: La voix du Peuple ut la voix d8 Dieu.

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 CHAPTER VII

IMPORTANT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION

AND ITS FORMS-THE FORMS WHICH CONSTITUTE THE
CULTS CAN BELONG TO DESTINY AS TO THE WILL: THE
ESSENCE IS ALWAYS PROVIDENTIAL AND LEADS TO THE-
OCRACY-cAUSES OF RELIGIOUS QUARRELS AND SCHISMS

IT line,
will doubtless be understood that I mean by the median
of which I spoke in the preceding chapter, the pro-
vidential action which must be admitted into the government
to consolidate there the union of the other two principles,
which, without this means, will never be united, because these
principles are extremes, and two extremes under any rela-
tions which one considers can never be united except by a
medium which touches them equally. But, perhaps, some
of my readers will say, if by providential action you mean
religion, this action, already admitted into many govern-
ments, has not produced the effect that you appear to expect;
experience has proved, on the contrary, that it has divided
the minds instead of uniting them; and that, far from pro-
ducing good results, either it has not produced any or it has
produced bad ones.
I must make an important distinction here.
This providential action is manifested in principle in all
religion, as the prophetic action in all monarchical institu-
tions and the volitive action in all republican institutions;
but the cult that consecrates this religion is only one of its
forms, and this form can as well become monarchical as
soo

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 Religious Quarrels Only Political 501

republican, according as Destiny or the Will of Man succeeds

in taking possession of it. The cult never remains provi-
dential only as far as it is theocratic, that is to say, as far
as it makes an integral part of the government and as it
bears in it not so much the form as the essence of its prin-
ciple. Understand this well, I beg you, and do not look for
examples in ancient times and far away from what is hap-
pening before our eyes; consider the difference there is be-
tween a Greek archimandrite and a minister of the Holy
Gospel among the Quakers; these two men call themselves
Christians and Christians par excellence, and profess never-
theless opposed maxims. They both hold to the providential
action by the religion to which they belong; but the forms
of the cult have become with the one prophetic and with the
other volitive. Both of them schismatic, they could only
become again providential by becoming orthodox, supposing
that orthodoxy might be recognized as a universal theocracy,
which it certainly has wished to be, but which it never has
been.
When the distinction which I have just attempted is
well established in the minds of my readers, I can go a step
further. It is said that religion has often produced evil
results by dividing the minds which it ought to unite and
precipitating into bloody dissensions the peoples whom it
should maintain in concord and in peace. I reply, that it is a
mistake to say this; religion is not to blame for these calami-
tous effects. Issued from Providence, which is the prin-
ciple of all good, it has never been able of itself to cause any
evil. It is the forms of the cults which have been the occa-
sion of these deplorable ravages, when these forms, invaded
by the Will of Man or by Destiny, are found in contradiction
with the forms of government given by an opposed principle.
Europe, it is well known, has been the theatre, more than any
other part of the world, of these cruel dissensions which have
served as pretext to the enemies of Providence to slander the
means; but the principle of these dissensions was not in

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Providence; it was either in the free action of the Will or in
the fatality of Destiny. What were called religious quarrels
were only political quarrels in which the prophetic or voli-
tive men armed themselves with forms of cult, to fight and
deal harder and deeper blows. Providence, submitted to
its own laws, could change neither the essence of liberty nor
that of necessity, which caused these attacks; it has only
lessened the vehemence and prevented the two powers
while triumphing completely one over the other from being
reciprocally destroyed.
If one would go quite deeply into the causes of these
fatal dissensions by which Europe has been agitated, he must
believe that the Christian religion which dominates there
is not of European origin, but Asiatic; that it holds even
by its primordial roots to Mrica, since the Sepher of Moses
containing all the Atlantean traditions and all the Egyp-
tian mysteries serves as its basis, and that in consequence
the forms of its cult are all of the domain of Destiny, which
has been able easily to take possession of it. The rigidity
of its dogmas, their obscurity, their prophetic concatenation,
which leaves it no liberty, no unfolding possible to human
reason, all in this religion has therefore served the movement
of Destiny, which must arrest the too petulant impetus of
the Will. The cult of Odin, entirely volitive, has happily
been restrained after the effect which it had to make has
been attained; the barbarians surprised in the forms of a
a new cult have seen their audacity expire there; and the
downfall of the Roman Empire, which had to bring about
the total ruin of the Social State in Europe and the annihi-
lation of the Borean Race by itself, has not had the fatal
consequences that it ought to have. Mter several centuries
of stupor and of gloom, this race has come out of its lethargy
and begun anew its ascending movement; it has wished to
retake the dominion over Asia that it had had there, and
without doubt, with the aid of its Asiatic cult. it would have
done so, if this cult had not been found divided by that of

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 Essence of Religion Providential 503

Mohammed whose forms more prophetic still have forced it

to recede.
If the Christian religion had been able to become theo-
cratic at the time of the Crusades as it ought, none of the
evils which have happened since would have taken place.
It would have been able, by exercising a just influence over
governments, to reveal a legitimate power which following
the increase of knowledge would have continued to modify
its forms in such a way as to be always in harmony with
exterior things; but the reasons, that I have developed at
length, prevented it from reaching this height of prosperity,
and the constantly renewed struggles which have sprung up
since between the Priesthood and the Empire, the Pope and
the Emperors, have forever removed the possibility.
The Christian religion not having become theocratic and
consequently not having entered the governments as an
integral part, these governments have been delivered over
to the interminable divisions of these two rival powers, the
Will of Man and Destiny, which have both aspired to domi-
nate there exclusively, and which, taking possession of the
forms of cult, have sought by tum points of support favour-
able to their designs. These forms entirely prophetic in
orthodoxy and very fitting to serve the pretensions of the
pure monarchists have offered a singular contrast with the
morals of Christianity, which from another side, preaching
humility to the great ones and even more than equality to
all men since it declares that the first shall be last, favoured
completely republican demagogues; so that in opposing only
forms to morals, the two parties have been able to find in
the Christian cult political weapons which they have
unfortunately used too dexterously.
But these arms although already very strong have not
sufficed for them. The prophetic men in attaching them-
selves to the forms of cult and feeling what a solid force
they were putting into their hands to move all the political
machine have wished to co-ordinate the morals which vex

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them and thence has come the Greek schism; whereas the
volitive men, in taking possession of the morals whose fun-
damental principle offered them a powerful lever to move the
multitude, have sought to make the forms follow from it,
and they have succeeded and thence arose the German and
English schism. Thus the divisions in the Christian cult
have not been religious as one has believed without examina-
tion; they have been political. It is not religion, it is politics
which has always stained Europe with blood. Religion was
there only as a pretext; politics was the real cause. Provi-
dence, a stranger to all the calamitous divisions, left the Will
and Destiny to fight; and not being able to arrest their op-
posed movements, inherent in the essence of things, has
tempered at least the fury of it, never ceasing in the midst
of war to offer to both parties the means of making peace.
Be assured, that if the Catholics have suffered so much
in England and in the north of Germany, and if the Pro-
testants have been so cruelly persecuted in France, it is not
as religious men but as political men. The forms of the
Catholic cult could not agree with republican liberty;
nor those of the Protestant cult with monarchical necessity.
Wherever this discord exists, there is an open or secret
struggle between the government and the cult. There are
persecutions whenever forms can be opposed to forms; that
is to say, whenever political men whose secret intention is
to make the Will or Destiny, the republican or monarchical
principles, triumph, are able to take possession of the forms
of cult to represent their adversaries not only as rebels but
as ungodly men, infidels, or reprobates. The individuals
who suffer from these persecutions do not ordinarily attri-
bute them to their real causes; they believe themselves to
be victims of their beliefs, when they are only thus by their
opposition to a political system. Involved by the force of
things they do not realize to what vortex they are obedient;
often they are even in opposition with themselves; this
happens whenever a Catholic protests in England that the

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 Providence Must Be All or Nothing sos
king is not king by the grace of God, or when in France a
Protestant affirms that the sovereignty is not in the people.
This Catholic or this Protestant can speak truly for himself;
he can really believe this as an individual, but private belief
has no bearing on the general system. No one gives credit
to his discourse, and it is one more evil for him in time of
trouble, when driven by uncontrollable forces into move-
ments to which he does not consent.
If religion had been powerful, if it had been able to make
the voice of Providence understood in the midst of the tumult
of ardent or indifferent passions which have agitated the
men of Will and of Destiny, it would have stopped their
ravages; but where was its strength? Where was the sanc-
tuary from which it might send forth its oracles? Did the
diverse governments receive the divine influence? Did it
enter as theocratic power into the constitution of these
governments? Not at all; admitted simply for the salva-
tion of the individuals it did not appear that the salvation
of the states might depend on it. It is, however, in the
salvation of the states that it would manifest its force if it
were invoked. But does one think even in the midst of evils
which the European population has experienced of invoking
it there? No; one still dreams of forms of cult, and the most
subtle politicians are those who seek the means of employing
them with the greatest skill. The greater part nevertheless,
and they are the so-called liberals, do not wish it at all.
According to them it is better to place religion outside of
governments and leave to each the liberty of following the
cult which is his by heritage from his fathers and which he
keeps by domestic custom, or that to which he gives prefer-
ence by conviction or by interest. The prophetic politicians,
on the contrary, wish to assure the dominion of an exclusive
cult, but only over the people and without being obliged,
on their own account, to give the slightest credit to it, or to
receive from it the least influence in the ensemble of the
Social State; all that they can do, is to allow themselves

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5o6 Hermeneutic Interpretation
to be inconvenienced temporarily by exterior ceremonies
and to throw over their scoffing and inattentive glances a
hypocritical veil which they well know how to lay aside at
the proper time.
But it is not thus that religion can attain its end and
scatter over human societies the benefits of Providence,
whether one pretends to isolate it in the manner of the voli-
tive men called Ultra-Liberals or in making a political force
of it, as the prophetic men called Ultra-Royalists imagine.
Providence could never enter into these chimerical projects.
Again my pen reiterates this truth, that Providence must be
all or nothing in a state, as in an individual. Those who
isolate it lose it; those who hope to make it an instrument
turn it against them by changing its nature, which, from the
good which it would have been in its divine liberty, becomes
bad in its prophetic necessity.

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 CHAPTER VIII

NEW CONSIDERATIONS OF THE SOCIAL STATE-WHAT ITS UNI-

VERSAL TYPE IS-HOW THE THREE POWERS DETERMINE
THE THREE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT-THESE THREE
UNITED FORMS GIVE BIRTH TO THEOCRACY- DIF-
FERENCE BETWEEN EMPOROCRACY AND CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY

L ET us try to retrace our steps, and after having recalled

to memory the constitution of Man, such as I have
explained in my Introductory Dissertation, and after having
carefully considered this truth, so often repeated by the
ancient sages, that Nature alike in all things is the same in
every place, let us sum up by saying that the Social State,
being only Man himself developed, should represent to us
an image, as Man himself represents to us an image of the
Universe and the Universe an image of God.
Now, we know that Man contains in his volitive unity
three different spheres, whose perfect harmony constitutes
the perfection of his being. Man can only be perfect as far
as these three spheres are not only entirely developed, but
all three determined towards a unique end by the Will which
moves them; that is, as far as instinctive life, animistic life,
and intellectual life, resulting from these three spheres, form
only one sole and same life. If one of these lives fails, the
human being is as much more imperfect as the life which
fails is more elevated; and if, between the lives which remain,
one seeks to dominate to the detriment of the other, this
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being is a prey to disorder. More or less tormented by con-
fused and incongruous thoughts, and more or less inclined
towards the weakness which drags it to nothingness, or the
blind force which precipitates it towards crime, it inclines
likewise towards destruction.
Such then is Man and such is the Social State. The
three spheres of which I have just spoken: the intellectual,
the animistic, and the instinctive are represented in this state
by three forms of government which issue from the three
great powers by which the Universe is governed: Providence,
the Will, and Destiny. The theocratic form is providential
and intellectual; the republican, animistic and volitive;
the monarchical, prophetic and instinctive. This last form
belongs to Nature naturee; it issues from the very force of
things and the Social State inclines to it unceasingly. The
first belongs to Nature naturante; it is brought about by the
perfectibility of things and the Social State aspires to it.
The median form, which is the republican, belongs to Nature
transitive, that is to say, to that nature which unites la
naturante to la naturee and transforms without cessation one
into the other; it results from the movement of things which
brings about their fermentation, their dissolution, or their
regeneration; the Social S~te falls into it according to cir-
cumstances to be purified or to be destroyed.
These three forms of government, of which I have just
shown the principle and the aim, incline all three to become
dominant and exclusive in the social order; but although
good in themselves, their absolute domination, which can
exist only by the exclusion of the other two, becomes bad
whenever it is too prolonged; because it counteracts the
tripleform nature of man and hinders harmony from being es-
tablished there. This domination therefore is to be feared,
as in reality man does fear it; but not to such an extent, how-
ever, that the fear which it inspires can stifle all desire of
the union of these three forms into a single one, whatever
name this union may bear.

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 Universal Type of Social State 509
I beg you to observe that it is in the application of this
name that the greatest difficulty lies, and in the idea that
men form of it that the greatest danger is encountered; for
it is in vain that one would, in this elementary life in whose
depths men are plunged, evade the influence of names.
The name is to the idea what the body is to the soul. One
obtains knowledge of the soul only by the body; one can
attain any of these rational or intellectual things only by
the name which contains the idea of it. Now, the name
given to the form of government which unites the three
forms in a single one is ordinarily that of theocracy; and
this name is incomplete, in that it represents only the idea
of the providential form dominating alone, because men,
too far away from God to understand Him, confuse Him with
Providence, which is only one of His laws. But a real
theocracy is not only providential, it is volitive and pro-
phetic to the same degree, that is to say, it contains the
action of the three universal powers equally balanced, and it
reflects the harmony of the three spheres of the life of the
Kingdom of Man.
At the sole name of theocracy, however, the volitive
and prophetic men rebel, imagining that it is a question of
taking away from some the action of the Will, whence results
civil liberty, and from others that of Destiny, whence issues
political property. This chimerical danger which they
consider as imminent unites them, notwithstanding their
opposed nature, and renders them strong enough to resist
providential men; to counteract their efforts and nearly
always makes them incomplete or useless. This unusual
union is that which retards most the Social State in its de-
velopment and which causes the greatest evils there. It
would be better that the two powers, unreservedly separated,
as in republics or in pure monarchies, should watch each
other or combat openly, than to devour one another in
secret as in emporocracies or in constitutional monarchies.
I shall relate why. It is because in pure republics where

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the Will of Man reigns without obstacles, or in absolute
monarchies where Destiny dominates, Providence can find
its place, by making a sort of alliance with the exclusive
principle against the excluded principle; whereas in emporo-
cracies or in constitutional monarchies where a sort of pact
binds momentarily the Will and Destiny, Providence can
be admitted only as an impotent form and always more
harmful than useful.
But, one will say, if this pact which binds momentarily
Destiny and the Will, whether in emporocracies or in con-
stitutional monarchies, procures tranquillity and welfare to
the people, what more could one ask for the governments?
Indeed if welfare and tranquillity resulted from these sorts
of governments, that would be more than sufficient for the
people, jealous of these advantages, to close their ears to
the advice of providential men of all countries, who have
not ceased to tell them that these short moments of ap-
parent prosperity would be dearly paid for by the real
calamities which would follow; but it is more than doubt-
ful that in these sorts of mixed governments, even the best
organized, these benefits are really enjoyed. This faint eclat
which is seen in emporocracies, and which is considered as
welfare, is only a false disguise with which commercial
luxury colours for a moment the cheeks of the moribund.
The excessive misery of a greater part of the people and the
profound immorality which torments the rest, nourish in
the heart of the nation the ferments of hatred and impiety,
which cannot fail to destroy it. As to the kind of tranquil-
lity which one believes to attain in constitutional monarchies,
it is a political phantom, a vain shadow which escapes the
very moment when one expects to seize it. These vain
institutions which are constantly recommended, this mass
of ordinances which are decorated with the name of laws,
these mainsprings which break at the least shock, these
frivolous counter-weights where constitutional genius ex-
hausts itself, all this proves sufficiently that the great work

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 Constitutional Monarchy 511

is not yet found and that this golden age so much promised
by our modem Solons has not stood the test.
In speaking with regard to the republic, I have explained
what I meant by this kind of government which I call em-
porocratic; it is a government where the republican principle
which constitutes it is found mitigated by monarchical
institutions where the opposed principle dominates. This
government in which commerce plays the principal r6le has
for its mainspring national credit, a modem invention
whose nature I have sufficiently explained. Constitutional
monarchy which injudicious publicists confuse with em-
porocracy has other bases. It results also from a melange
of the two principles; but whereas the republican principle
is mitigated by the monarchical, &.S in emporocracy, and
whereas liberty passes before necessity, here it is quite the
contrary: necessity passes before liberty and the monarchical
principle is here mitigated by the republican. In the first
of these governments it is forbidden to say that the king,
considered as a representative of the people, is king by the
grace of God, even if he were to fulfil the functions of sover-
eign pontiff. The people, to whom one accords the su-
preme sovereignty, is put by this sole fact above even God.
There, religion is isolated from law; and whereas it is invoked
for the private individual with a sort of severity, and whereas
it is wished that individuals should have a cult, it is entirely
dispensed with for the government, whose sole cult is com-
merce and sole providence, national credit.
In the second of these governments, on the contrary,
the king is declared such by the grace of God and in virtue
of the constitutions of the state. It is supposed that the
people who ecognize him as legitimate and by divine right,
accord to him this title of supreme sovereignty, and only
preserve in the legislation the right to discuss the law, in
order to admit it or reject it. The law here is the result of
two powers, one which proposes it and the other which
sanctions it; but whereas this proposition and this sane-

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512 Hermeneutic Interpretation
tion appear simple they are not so. The king, declared
inviolable and incapable of doing evil, is, as a consequence of
this inviolability, reduced to doing nothing, or what amounts
to the same, reputed as never having done anything, not
even having improvised the formal speeches which he pro-
nounces. It is a ministry which passes everything as though
suggested by him. This ministry is responsible not only
for the laws which it proposes in the name of the king, but
even for all administrative acts which result from these laws,
the execution of which is confided to it. Here, therefore,
is a complex proposition made in the name of a monarch
not responsible, irresponsible in his royal acts by a ministry
responsible and capable of being accused on account of these
very acts. The sanction given to the law is equally com-
plex; for the power which sanctions is no longer the people,
properly speaking, but a part of this people, called the
national representation, and this national representation is
divided into two chambers, the one permanent, composed
of hereditary members called peers of the realm, named
originally by the king, and the other removable, composed
of members elected for a certain time by the electoral col-
leges assembled in different districts according to forms
fixed by a law. These two chambers give or refuse their
sanction and co-operate thus in the completion of the law
which could not be perfect unless vested with two sanctions:
the one independent of the people and the king, since it
emanates from the permanent body; and the other dependent
on the people and always influenced by the king, since it
depends upon a removable assembly whose members are
elected by the electoral college where the popular and royal
action makes itself felt by the way in which these colleges
are assembled and by that in which they are directed by the
president, who is by appointment of the king.
Here, without doubt, is a government which offers the
complication of the most ingenious political machinery
that one can find; it is a machine of the most wonderful

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 King by the Grace of God 513
conception; which if it moved would astonish the world by
its boldness. What more admirable, indeed, than to see a
monarch, whose power appears to emanate from the Divinity
itself, since he is entitled king by the grace of God, recognize
the liberty of the people and divide with them his legislative
authority? What more noble than this inviolability, which
places him beyond the attacks of factions, in the happy
impotency of doing evil, whilst one attributes to him all
the good which is done under his paternal administration?
What better could be imagined than that this national repre-
sentation which, without being subject to any of the blind
passions of the people, yet feels its salutary influence in
everything related to its real interest? This division into
two chambers, one hereditary and the other elective, is it
not the fruit of a most felicitous combination since it offers
the possibility of resisting opinion or of submitting oppor-
tunely? Do not these peers of the kingdom form a nobility
exempt from all danger? Can any ambition exist for them
other than that of the public good; any rivalry other than
that of national glory which reflects upon them? Are not
the representatives of the people the organs of public
opinion? Do they not see the career of eloquence opening
before them? Is not this tribune, where their manly voices
cause to be heard either the felicitations of the people, its
fears, hopes, or energetic protestations, the aim of all generous
desires, the maintenance of all virtues, the motive of all
talents? All this is admirable; why then does so worthy a
political machine not move? Precisely because it is a ma-
chine; it does not move for the same reason that the statue
of the Pythian Apollo, masterpiece of art, notwithstanding
the immense talent of him who made it, does not move
either. It should have had either a mainspring to make it
move or it should not have been a statue.
Where then is the mainspring of constitutional monarchy?
It has none; when it moves it is the ministry which pushes
it and which makes it move; it is the ministry which im-
33

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514 Hermeneutic Interpretation
presses it with movements by which it is afterwards fright-
ened itself; for a great machine which moves by impulse,
a colossus which. deprived of life is about to be moved. is
something terrible. If the ministry. fatigued or frightened,
suppresses its efforts. all is arrested, and then this is what
happens: a sort of fermentation is established in the national
representation. all of whose members aspire to be ministers
of the king. and according as this fermentation is either in
the chamber of peers or in that of the commons. it produces
a slight movement of the prophetic or volitive life. whose
commotion the monarch feels and it acts upon him accord-
ing to his character. If it continues in its ministry indolent
or unskilful it is exposed; if it does not continue and if it
chooses other ministers. the same impulse begins afresh in
the machine and lasts until the new ministry allows the
government to fall again from fatigue or alarm.
But could not a mainspring be found for constitutior.al
monarchy as has been found for monarchical or emporo-
cratic republics? Yes. but not of the same nature ; because
a monarchy cannot be commercial in the same manner as
a republic. and because national credit could never become
sufficiently powerful to serve as a mainspring; for, consider
this once more, in a constitutional monarchy. it is not com-
merce that ~ be placed in the first rank. as in an emporo-
cracy; because the throne, although constitutional. holds
always by its basis to a prophetic origin which, notwith-
standing the volitive force which repulses it, calls for an
aristocratic or noble order whose brilliancy. independent of
all other consideration, surrounds it. This order, which
always depends upon birth to be in harmony with the
legitimacy of the throne. can in no way be founded upon
commerce. where the eclat which birth gives. is useless and
even harmful. Its true bases are either territorial possession,
that is. agriculture, or the profession of arms, that is, mili-
tary glory. The existence of this order depends upon the
very essence of monarchy. and there is no constitution

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 Legitimacy of the Throne 515
possible that can annihilate it, when monarchy is not anni-
hilated; now, constitutional monarchy differs in this very
thing from emporocracy, that the monarchy exists there,
modified by the republic; whereas in emporocracy it is the
contrary, the republic is modified by the monarchy; so that
the commerce, which one finds here in the first rank and
which still gives to agriculture its means of growth and of
activity, is there, only in second or even third rank and
only follows agriculture, from which it draws its greatest
resources. In an emporocracy entirely developed, it is
commerce which dominates; it forms a state within the state;
it arms in its own defence; it supports land and sea forces;
it commands subjected peoples and becomes powerful
enough to put the state itself under its dependence, by
furnishing the magic mainspring which makes it move.
But nothing of all this can take place in a monarchy where
commerce, however flourishing it may be, can never give
glory, at least directly. Any attempt made to affect the
sovereignty, to raise armies, to maintain a warlike and con-
quering navy, would be illusory, so long as the state of
which it was a part was not constituted as a republic; be-
cause the noble or aristocratic order of which I spoke would
not obey it and would have to destroy it in order to rule it.
The action of a mainspring in any machine depends for
its superior force on that of the machine. A watch would
not go if its works opposed to the detention of its mainspring
a force superior to its own. The action of the commercial
mainspring, which is credit, is not powerful enough to move
a monarchy, on account of the too great resistances which
it finds in the institutions. It is necessary to search else-
where for this action; but at the same time that I indicate
where this action is and consequently where it should be
taken, God forbid my advising ever to make use of it I The
mainspring which gives it is too strong for the very reason
that it must be in proportion with the mass to be moved,
so that its use will not be eminently dangerous.

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 CHAPTER IX
WHAT THE POUTICAL MAINSPRING OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY SHOULD BE-DANGERS OF THIS MONARCHY
DEPRIVED OF MAINSPRING-NEW CONSIDERATIONS UPON
THE THREE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT AND UPON THEIR
DIVERSE KINDS

IN always
the preceding chapter, I have said that one should
seek the mainspring of any machine whatsoever
in a thing whose force is evidently superior to that of the
machine, so as to overcome by its means the resistance of
the masses which are opposed to its movement. In explain-
ing here what this mainspring is that one might employ
to move a constitutional monarchy, I must declare again
that the use of this mainspring would be dangerous and so
much the more dangerous as the state to which one would
apply it would be more extended in mass and more firm of
institution.
Considering therefore a constitutional monarchy as a
political machine made by the hand of man, and from the
government of which the action of Providence would be
removed in so far as political theocracy is concerned, here
is the mainspring that one could apply to it.
One should not take this mainspring either from the
essence of the monarchy or from that of the republic, be-
cause it would give too much force to one or the other, and
break the equilibrium which blends them; but it should be
sought in the very thing which has caused this blending and
516 -

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 A Supreme Arbiter 517
from which constitutional monarchy itself has received its
existence; now this thing is the Law. Therefore, place the
Law above all the institutions which emanate from it, and,
without any exception, submit them all to it, and one will
see that in displaying its superior force, it will cause them
to move; this is the way. Law, by which I mean here
political law, is a being of reason which has no movement
by itself, and which cannot raise its voice when it is aban-
doned, eluded, or infringed; but, give it an organ which is
independent of all other authority whose eye watches over
both people and king, and whose hand restrains both the
power of the Will and that of Destiny; establish by a momen-
tary co-operation of these two powers a mixed power re-
presented by the judiciary body; name a Supreme Arbiter
and cause the sovereign courts over which he will preside
to be sovereign not only in name but de facto, and you will
see what a terrible mainspring they will display under his
orders. Justice will be in the hands of this Supreme Arbiter
and all heads will bend before him. This supreme magistrate,
independent of any other magistrate, permanent but elec-
tive according to certain forms, can have nothing outside his
jurisdiction, and his duties will be only to represent the Law
and to see that it is executed. By means of its existence
there should be three powers in constitutional monarchy:
the prophetic and royal power represented by the king, his
nobility, his ministry, his councils and his administrative
agents; the volitive and popular, represented by the legis-
lative body divided into two chambers; the mixed power of
magistracy, independent of the other two, represented by
the Supreme Arbiter, president of all the sovereign courts.
This last power, veritable creation of the human reason, will
make the political work advance and will give it the duration
which the force of its institutions would promise it.
This mainspring, as I have said, is dangerous, because
it is susceptible of giving too strong an impulse; but it is
the only one which may be adapted to the political machine,

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518 Hermeneutic Interpretation
which is called a constitutional monarchy, and which is
capable of maintaining it upright and of making its various
works move. In its absence, this machine although of a
matchless form is too weak to resist the least shock. The
men who do not see this are the blind in politics. In order
that a constitutional monarchy may preserve its mixed
constitution a long time, deprived of all mainspring, it
should be isolated from all other political powers; it should
never be harmed, and the governed and the governors equally
content should not seek to dominate except by law and by
agreement. In the contrary case, the least pure monarchy,
if it is governed by an ambitious prince, the least empo-
rocracy, if it has an interest to submit, will suffice to make
it tremble. At the lightest shock it will fall. If the consti-
tutional king is endowed with military talents, if his char-
acter carries him towards a certain glory whose brilliancy
always dazzles young monarchs, he will easily break the
badly tied knot which unites the royal power to the popular,
he will subjugate the latter, and giving the former the power
towards which it inclines by its nature, will make of it a
pure monarchy, more or less strongly constituted according
to his force and talent. But if, on the contrary, the con-
stitutional king finds himself in difficult circumstances,
reduced to his civil virtues alone, and if there exists among
the people a man endowed with great force of will, whose
position in the legislative body or in the army renders him for-
midable, this man obtaining possession of the popular power
will easily crush his rival and will establish a pure republic.
In the meantime, as pure monarchy and republic have
both become impossible among us, on account of the indi~
pensable consequences which they bring about, and as
opinion repulses absolutely slavery or murder, it will happen
that neither prophetic man nor volitive man will attain to
the absolute end towards which they will tend, and that they
will be obliged to fall into the military or emporocratic
government according to the circumstances and the means

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 Unitarian Governments
which they will have employed. It is in vain that they will
seek to deceive themselves upon the nature of these means,
and that they will believe, as Robespierre or Bonaparte, to
make up for slavery by murder, and for murder by servi-
tude; neither servitude nor murder will serve them for any-
thing, and they will finally be the victims themselves of
their own means and be massacred or enslaved; for one can
never prevent indefinitely the effect from following its
cause. All that one can do is to retard it.
As to the military empire, or the emporocracy, which
will irresistibly result from a constitutional monarchy de-
prived of its mainspring: as these two governments possess
for mainspring the very force which constitutes them, mili-
tary or commercial, they can subsist much longer according
as they are favoured by exterior circumstances; but their
existence will always be very much limited in comparison
with that of simple governments, and above all in compari-
son with that of Unitarian governments, which are the only
perfect ones.
Now that I have stated, although with some difficulty
on account of the danger which it involves, what the main-
spring of the constitutional monarchy is, and as I have
sufficiently explained what I mean by simple and mixed
governments, I shall without more delay pass on to Unitarian
governments; yet before reaching that point, I believe it
useful, in such a new matter, and in which it has been im-
possible for me to bring as much method as I would wish,
to state clearly the difference between the three kinds of
government of which I now speak, and the three forms of
which I have spoken. This difference consists principally
in the fact that the three forms of government, which depend
upon three distinct principles and issue from the action
of the three great Powers which rule the Universe, can be
considered as simple, mixed, or unitarian; and consequently
can produce three kinds of government in each of these
forms. Let us examine this.

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520 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Providence, the Will of Man, or Destiny in exercising
their action upon the Social State, determine potentially
three forms of government, which pass into action as soon
as the exterior circumstances favour their development.
These three forms are in general : theocracy for Providence,
republic for the Will, and monarchy for Destiny. I call
them pure when that which dominates offers no fusion with
the other two. Theocracy, for example, was pure among
the Hebrews; the republic, pure among the Athenians;
monarchy pure among the Assyrians. Among these peoples
the government was simple. In Palestine, it was in the
hands of a sovereign pontiff established by Moses to rule
the people in the name of God alone; in Athens, it depended
upon a certain number of magistrates, named Archons,
established to guide the people in the name of the people
themselves. At Nineveh, it rested completely in the hands
of an absolute monarch, heir of Ninus, and commanding
the people in his own name. Mter having considered the
principle of these three forms of pure government, we should
consider the consequences and the means, which are: for
pure theocracy, faith and absolute devotion to the Divinity;
for the republic, love of country transformed into virtue
and horror of servitude; for the monarchy, self-esteem and
pride transformed into honour, and fear of pain or of
ignominy which accompanies death.
These pure forms become the species in comparing them
to mixed forms which can result from their blending; and
then I call them simple forms. Mixed forms result from
the amalgamation which is made of the two simple forms.
The union of theocracy to the Republic, for example, con-
stituted the legislation of Orpheus among the ancient Greeks;
that of theocracy to monarchy expressed the mission of
Krishna to India, or Zoroaster in Persia, of N uma among
the Etruscans. Odin among the Scandinavians united
theocracy to feudalism, which was already a fusion, made by
force of arms of the monarchy in the republic. Wherever

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 Diverse Mainsprings Employed 521

theocracy is found, whether mixed with the republic, with

monarchy, or with feudalism, it gives political life to the
states and serves as means of making them move. These
states have no need of other mainspring. But when theo-
cracy is wanting in the mixed forms, that is to say, when the
providential action is put outside of the governments, what-
ever they may be, then these governments have need of a
political mainspring, which serves them as means to set
going the diverse works. This mainspring is, in the simple
forms, the result of their principle, and then I call it the
means of life; it is again in the mixed forms, where theocracy
is found in action, a consequence of the providential action
which is felt there; but in those where Providence is absent,
this mainspring, which should be called political, is the very
work of the legislation. It must always draw itself from
the primal cause which has determined the melange or fusion
of the two principles. Thus the military empire and feud-
alism which is the consequence of it, founded by force of arms
and by conquest, receive their mainspring from the same
force; thus all aristocracies, oligarchies, or emporocracies
borrow theirs from the primal cause which has raised the
aristocrats, the oligarchs, or the emporocrats, and it is al-
ways a sort of political illusion, a faith given to the birth,
the wisdom, or the fortune of those governing; a credit
finally, which rests upon whatever may be, most often upon
nothing.
All the constitutional monarchies, however they may
be constituted, have equal need of a political mainspring;
and this mainspring can be found only where it exists, that
is to say, in the primal cause of their constitutions. The
European monarchies, whose forms have never been simple
on account of the volitive movement acting in Europe since
the origin of society in the Borean Race, have employed,
according to the time and circumstances, diverse mainsprings
to continue them. In Aragon, the Supreme Arbiter; in
Castile, the Santa Hermandad; in England and in France, the

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522 Hermeneutic Interpretation
Parliaments which are called tutors of the kings; in Germany,
the order of Teutonic Knights, etc.; all these political insti-
tutions, nearly always produced by the state of things and
without premeditation for the object which was devolved
upon them, have held the place of political mainspring,
according as the true means of life or of existence became
extinct or worn out; that is to say, according as the providen-
tial action was withdrawn from the governments or as the
force of arms was without power there.
At the epoch when social order commenced to emerge
in Europe from the depths of the gloom into which the down-
fall of the Roman Empire had dragged it, politics and legis-
lation developed, so to speak, all alone in the darkness; the
force of things stood for much in all the institutions, which
often took quite another direction and quite another place
than their founders had intended; but today, as knowledge
acquires an ever-increasing eclat, instinct is of no further
use to the legislator and he is no longer permitted to ignore
the end for which he works. He should know, if he wishes
to found a military and feudal empire, that he has need of
force of arms and that without conquest he can do nothing.
If he dreams of a pure republic, he must examine where or
how he will find slaves. If he wishes an absolute monarchy,
he must consider that he will need instruments of death.
But a superior force prevents him from wishing slavery or
murder; he must cease then wishing for democracy or
despotism. His attention is fixed upon aristocracy; where
is the illusion with which he will surround his aristocrats?
Who will believe them greater or wiser than himself? But
his aristocrats will be the oligarchs whose fortune, and prin-
cipally great territorial possession, will constitute the merit.
I say that if oligarchs are noble as well as rich, they will
wish a monarchy; and that if they are only rich without
being noble, they will wish a republic. I say that never will
fortune alone serve either as bond or mainspring to a state,
because it is too fickle and changes hands too often. It

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 Majorats
will be fixed by majorats or right of primogeniture; yes but,
then it is a phantom of nobility that will be created, to which
they will attach all the difficulties of real nobility without
one of its advantages. Well, the legislator will incline the
State towards emporocracy; but has he at his disposal an
immense commerce which covering both hemispheres with
its pavilions can change into a two-edged sword the caduceus
of Mercury? If he has not, let him seek another form
of government; for emporocracy demands for mainspring
a national credit that such a commerce alone can give him.
This is why the legislator stops at a constitutional monarchy,
half monarchy and half republic; it presents the model
which he has meditated in the calm of all his passions. This
model is very beautiful; it will become a statue of most
happy proportions; it is too bad that it will not move. He
will place a mainspring in it; he will do well; but he would
do still better if he tried to put life in it. How! life into a
statue! Yes, life into a statue. Ah! Who will be the
protecting Divinity who will hear this political Pygmalion?
A Divinity who will never refuse assistance to those who
invoke it with a pure heart and in the interest of universal
good: Providence.

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 CHAPTER X

REAL CONDITION OF THINGS IN EUROPE--cOMBAT BETWEEN

MEN OF WILL AND THOSE OF DESTINY, THE LIBERALS
AND THE ROYALISTS-WHAT THE MIXED MEN CALLED
MINISTERIAL ARE-DANGER IN WHICH THE SOCIAL
ORDER FINDS ITSELF-MEANS OF EVADING THIS DANGER

PROVIDENCE is in all things wherever its presence is

recognized. It is in the fetish of the Mrican savage, as
in the Tables of the Law presented by Moses. Like the
universal life which emanates from it and shines both in the
eye of the gnat and in that of the elephant, it differs only by
the grandeur, merit, or importance of the objects. As divine
faith is the moral fruit that it bears, it is also this fruit which
produces it. Wherever divine faith is, there also, in poten-
tial existence, is the intellectual power which dominates
the Universe. Outside of this faith are only transitory
productions; for everything that volitive liberty or prophetic
necessity produces is transitory. Providential productions
alone have the right to immortality.
I believe I can openly announce this truth. Providence
can be called into all the governments and all could owe
life to it; but in order that this life should be complete, it is
necessary that the three powers should be united in a single
one. This union, when it is possible, constitutes what I
call a Unitary government. This government can take
place whenever two powers are already united in a mixed
524

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 Will of Man in Europe
form. To make it perfect, one needs only to add the
power which is lacking.
If one will but reflect upon what I have just said, one
will feel that the moment is extremely favourable for con-
stituting a military government in Europe; and that if the
men, called by Destiny or by the Will to be legislators there,
do not feel the enormous advantage given them by the shock
which has just agitated this part of the world, they will miss
one of the most excellent opportunities that could be offered
to their labours. I know well that at first, drawn on by
appearances, these men will tell me that far from seeing
things tending towards the Unity that I indicate, it seems,
on the contrary, that everything is making efforts to divide
itself more and more. I do not deny these appearances;
I find them even quite natural and very fitting to prove
what I have said.
And let one recall how the Will of Man has made at-
tempts in Europe to seize the power. What labours! what
marvellously woven plots! what long and painful efforts!
At last it was about to succeed; an unexpected obstacle has
presented itself. The pure republic twice established and
twice cemented with the blood of two unfortunate monarchs
has not been able to resist the first shock of Destiny. It
has fallen upon the bloody ruins which it has heaped up.
In the meantime a prophetic man has presented himself;
he has enveloped in his vortex this terrible European Will
and has told it that this vortex was his. It has believed
him even long after it no longer could believe him. But
finally when this man, repulsed by a Destiny more powerful
than his own, has fallen, ought it still to sustain him? Yes,
because it had no other hope than to deceive him, as he had
deceived it. Astonished at its defeat but not discouraged,
this proud Will struggles again against events. It tries its
last resources and agitates everything that it can agitate.
From the Tagus to the Don its voice is heard. It shakes
Spain and Italy, it troubles England and Germany; it intimi-

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dates France; it moves the dust of ancient Greece, where
formerly it ruled; Turkey and Russia having sprung into the
arena will strike blows of which it is difficult to foretell the
result. Whatever it may be, it always hopes to derive
advantage, at least, by the enfeeblement of its most formid-
able enemies.
Meanwhile Destiny, still trembling from the risk it has
run, excites its defenders. The prophetic men which it
animates oppose themselves with all their strength to the
volitive ones. Under the names of royalists and liberals,
both urge the Social State in contrary directions, and seem
to wish to destroy it. The former, who only aspire to the
re-establishment of the overthrown institutions, are accused
of wishing to retard civilization; the latter, who only strive
to realize their ideas of improvement, are accused of wishing
to ruin it by urging it ahead into the whirlpools of revolu-
tions. These two accusations, which are not devoid of
foundation, cause a multitude of defences and explanations
which exonerate no one and explain nothing. However,
some mixed governments being formed and having operated
by means of the interest of the moment, a sort of union
among several of these men, have succeeded in mitigating
their ideas and in producing among them a sort of inter-
mediate party, which is called the party of the centre. The
men who compose it are not of the party, properly speaking:
they are moderators, arbitrators, supporters of the govern-
ment, and these names, which ought to be an honour and
make their strength, are precisely what ruins them in the
public opinion and which takes all means from them.
If one had need of a new reason after all these I have
given, or which have issued naturally from announced facts,
this one will be more than sufficient to make it understood,
that these mixed governments, in which is wasted the genius
of modem legislators, lack still the two most powerful politi-
cal motives, love of country and honour, since the royal-
ists and the liberals wish to put there neither the one nor

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 Mixed Governments
the other. It appears in these governments that there is
a sort of shame to be of the opinion of the ministers and to
sustain them. The mind which animates them, however
pure and disinterested it may be, carries always with it a
character of obscurity and of ruse which arms beforehand
against it. One cannot enter there without making conces-
sions which wound self-esteem, and this could not be other-
wise. The mixed governments are mixed, precisely because
they are not simple and because nothing pure or simple
could agree with them. The royalists would have the
ministers, royalists, and the liberals would have them liber-
als; but that cannot be without involving instantly the over-
throw of the constitutional edifice; because this edifice is
not composed of homogeneous elements, but of elements
participating of two opposed principles-the monarchical
and the republican. If the ministers were pure liberals or
royalists, they would not be the ministers of a constitutional
monarchy, but those of a republic or of an absolute monarchy;
and because they are in the spirit of their institution, in the
real constitutional character which is a blending of the re-
public and the monarchy, they are accused of duplicity.
One pours out more than ridicule and less than blame upon
them and upon the intermediate party by which they are
surrounded; one reproaches them with living by corruption;
one is on the point of telling this government, which one
has chosen, that it can have agents and friends only at the
price of the lowest interests and that there exists for it in
the hearts of the people neither love, nor honour, nor zeal
which excites them outside of sordid passions that it knows
how to inspire.
Suppose, in a similar state of affairs, such a government
in a great danger, you will see that it cannot sustain itself
a moment by its own force. It will be obliged to seek sup-
port among its most decided enemies, the pure liberals or
royalists, from whom it will find it only on condition of
ceasing to be itself to become them; which not being able to

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do, it will see the necessity of deceiving them and of sinking
deeper than ever into that path of stratagem and of cor-
ruption for which it is so much reproached. It will be able
thus for some time to stir alternatively the love of country
or honour by appealing to liberty or necessity; but this see-
saw play will end soon by finding dupes no longer; the main-
springs which it will employ will be worn out; its means of
corruption will be exhausted; it will have no more allure-
ments sufficiently powerful at its disposal; party hatred,
fatigued, will no longer be open to the conspiracies which it
will form to frighten the one by the other; only the masses
moving themselves will clash and be broken and annihilate
each other if the exterior enemy does not triumph by
conquest.
This is the actual condition of a great part of Europe:
on the one side a violent movement towards a pure republic;
on the other a movement none the less strong towards
absolute monarchy; in the middle some mixed governments,
emporocratic or constitutional, alternately drawn by one
or the other tendency, and by tum forced to follow their
opposed vortexes. This condition is difficult and if it lasts
long, it menaces the social order in Europe with an entire
subversion. There exists only one means of saving it, and
this means I have clearly indicated: it is to call Providence
into the governments and to bring into Unity what is mixed
and divided. Make therefore the schism of religion dis-
appear; efface all the differences of cult; have a European
sovereign pontiff, who will be both recognized and respected
by all the peoples; let this sovereign pontiff dominate over
an enlightened priesthood, wise and powerful, whose voice
will be heard in your councils; let these councils, instead of
admitting only two principles and of being in consequence
the arena of an eternal combat, receive three, represented
thus: Providence, by the sovereign pontiff and the priest-
hood; Destiny, by the monarch, the peers of the kingdom,
his ministry, and his nobility; the Will of Man, by the elec-

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 A European Sovereign Pontiff 529

toral colleges and the deputies of the departments; and you

will see that that Unity so much sought for will be formed of
itself, for three powers or three principles united produce
always, in amalgamating, a fourth power or a fourth prin-
ciple, whence results the sole Unity possible on earth.
But you will object, that I propose, to heal an actual and
positive evil, a remedy contingent and almost illusory; you
will say that it is impossible to bring religion to the uni-
formity of a cult and to create a sovereign pontiff who may
unite in him the assent and the veneration of all the peoples
of Europe. I reply to this objection, the only one indeed
which you can make, that the proposed remedy appears to
you eventual and almost illusory only because you do not
conceive its physical and moral reality, and that this reality
escapes you only because you regard as impossible, things
that are the easiest when they are veritably desired. Desire
then only these things and you will see the obstacles which
you loved to believe insurmountable smooth away before
you. Dare to make a movement towards Providence; it
awaits it to help you. Nevertheless do not be deceived in
it; yes, no doubt, it would be impossible to remove from
religion the schisms which disfigure and dishonour it; it
would be impossible to arrive at the uniformity of the cult
that Providence demands, if you would try again to obtain
these admirable results either by oblique detours of strategy
or by the odious means of force. Neither strategy nor force
would succeed for you. Do not forget this axiom which I
have so often repeated in the course of this work: that
universal things, dependent on a universal principle, are
only destroyed by themselves or are changed only by the
interior labour of their own principle. Now, of all the
things that one can place in the category of those which
depend on a universal principle, religion is assuredly of the
first rank. It can therefore never be changed or modified
but by itself; all other change, all other modification would
be useless or harmful. All the exterior means which one
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530 Hermeneutic Interpretation
could take to arrive at this end would be dangerous and with-
out effect. Providence can restrain neither the liberty of
the Will nor the necessity of Destiny; but also it can never
be restrained by either. When one wishes it to change or
to modify its productions one must know how to interest
it for that purpose.
If, therefore, the Protestants find that, relative to the
enlightenment of the century, the Catholic cult continues to
offer in its dogmas too great an obscurity and in its doctrines
too great a stiffness; if, on the other hand, the Catholics and
the Protestants themselves agree to regard the reformed cult
as insignificant and cold, incoherent and versatile; if the
schismatic Greeks refuse less their assent to certain dogmas
as they fear the papal influence; if the Jews themselves,
long enough persecuted for a fatal error, suffer from living
isolated in the midst of European nations, it would assuredly
be very possible to obviate all these difficulties. The
obstacles formerly insurmountable are no longer so today.
Everything wears away with time and the forms of cult
efface themselves as all other things. They lose their asper-
ity; their principal signs disappear and soon they can no
longer distinguish outwardly men who belong to the differ-
ent sects, even the most opposed. A Catholic, a Protestant,
a Schismatic Greek, and even a Jew can meet in the same
hostelry and live there for months without perceiving today
that they follow different rites. Not a century or two ago
on the first Saturday in the week which had assembled them
at the same table, all four would have been struck with an
unquestionable impression; they would have separated
instantly. Now they do not separate; because at first they
are not recognized, and they would see no reason for sepa-
rating even though they should recognize each other; for
their different habits are merged in the same habits, which
is to behave in the world as all the world. It is not because
all four do not hold to their own cult and because they would
not give themselves over to violent movements if one wished

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 Time Effaces Forms of Cult 531
to force them to change it. But be certain that it is by
political motives that they hold to it, and that opinion or
self-esteem, necessity or liberty are there to take the place
of their religious zeal. This is the reason ; manage these
political motives; act in the interior and not upon the ex-
terior; make Religion influence the cults and not the cults
Religion and doubt not the success.
One appears to dread the influence of a sovereign pontiff;
one recalls with terror the disastrous epochs of which I have
sketched the history; but these epochs were the inevitable
crises of the decadence of the Social State in Europe; they
were produced by the darkness which the barbarians had
drawn with them; this darkness is dissipated; it can renew
itself no more.
Besides, has there been in Europe a veritable sovereign
pontiff? I have taken enough pains to show that there
has not been. There is no reason why there should not be
one, even the one who occupies the place today, provided
he is providentially recognized and he himself recognizes
the supreme power from which he will take his authority.

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 CHAPTER XI

APPEAL OF PROVIDENCE IN THE MIXED GOVERNMENTS TO

RENDER THEM UNITARY

P ROFOUNDLY penetrated by this truth, that the salva-

tion of Europe and that of the world which it draws
into the vortex of its will can come only from Providence,
and assuming that in the absence even of all intellectual
inspiration the physical reality has spoken clearly enough
by the voice of experience, to peoples and kings, to engage
them to turn at last their attention towards a superior
power which only awaits their appeal to fly to their succour,
I had shown in this chapter what the forms of this appeal
should be and by what means as simple as easy one could
attain the accomplishment of all the things of which I have
spoken. But after having written with deep feeling this
important chapter, the one perhaps for which the others
have been conceived and co-ordinated in a primal thought,
having reread it coldly and with a calm mind, I have seen
that it ought not to be published; for it is not here a question
of setting forth principles, but of showing the consequences
of them in the future, in giving them legal forms; which was
submitting inevitably one power to the other and leaving
the Will master to stifle the productions of Destiny before
they had acquired enough stability to resist it.
It is with a keen regret, I confess, that I am obliged to
suppress that part of my labour, which I regarded as the
newest and most necessary; but prudence and reason have
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 Concerning an Unpublished Part 533

commanded this sacrifice. A scheme of theocratic legisla-

tion, of the nature of that which I have laid down, could not
be confided to the public without imminent danger; for the
public, not being called to realize it, can take possession of
it only to destroy it by opposing its consequences or by
depreciating beforehand all its advantages. Only a states-
man placed in most fortunate circumstances, a monarch,
a minister of the Church vested with an august character,
can assure its immense results by giving successively to its
diverse parties a force and stability which they can receive
only from laws.
An obscure and simple writer, I have indeed been able
to show the power that men should invoke if they would
recall into their midst the peace which they have banished;
but when the moment has come to establish the forms of this
invocation I have felt my weakness and my inability; and,
forced to keep silent for fear of profaning them, I hold my
tongue. The chapter, wherein I have written down these
forms, exists it is true, but I will keep it to communicate it
only when a favourable opportunity presents itself. If
during the course of my life this occasion does not present
itself, I have taken care that it will at least survive me, for
the very sacrifice that I make proves sufficiently that I
attach to it quite a different importance from that which
springs ordinarily from the self-esteem or vanity of an author.

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 CHAPTER XII

GENERAL RECAPITULATION

I FIND myself at the close of my work with a satisfaction

mingled with some uneasiness; I have done what I
wished, without doubt, but not exactly as I would have
wished to do; I feel that in many passages I have fallen short
of my subject; and that, notwithstanding all the trouble I
have taken to be clear, many things remain obscure. In the
unusual course that I have taken, determined to sketch in
a few pages the history of the Kingdom of Man in one of
its races during the space of twelve thousand years, innu-
merable events are presented to me. Nearly all of these
appear worthy to be rewritten, nevertheless it was necessary
to make a choice, for my intention was not to compose a
too long work, at a time when the small number of readers
who seek still to instruct themselves, surrounded by a mass
of political pamphlets and of ephemeral sheets, has but little
time to give to prolix works. In making this indispensable
choice, I have at times seen, but too late, that I could have
made a better choice; at other times, when my choice has
seemed fortunate I have recognized that I had not entered
into all the developments which the importance of my sub-
ject should have demanded. I have often reproached
myself and I will perhaps be reproached, but it was inevit-
able. I could not, while I was still occupied in outlining the
most shadowy plans of my historical picture, design all the
aspects, nor determine all the masses: if I had endeavoured
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 Cosmogony of Moses 535
to do it, I would have produced a picture without perspec-
tive or I would have been forced to give it a distance out of
all proportion.
Perhaps one will believe that it would have been possible
at the commencement of my work to enter into greater
details upon each of the races which compose the Kingdom
of Man, and that I should have indicated more clearly their
origin; to say, for example, why these races had not appeared
simultaneously on the earth and by what reasons they were
born upon one part of the globe rather than upon the other.
I admit that this would have been worthy of being presented
to the curiosity of the reader; but as I have given it to be
understood, the origin of the races and their position on the
earth holds too closely to the origin of the Kingdom of Man
itself to be able to be separated from the science which
treats especially of it; this science, which is by its elevation
outside of history, properly speaking, is called Cosmogony.
Our hierographic writer, Moses, has treated particularly
of it, not in an obvious manner, it is true, for the vulgar
grasp, but in a manner clear enough, nevertheless, so that
the veil by which he has covered the origin of all things can
be raised by a learned hand. I have given first the chief
means of raising this veil, by restoring the Hebraic tongue,
and by rendering thus to the terms of the original text the
veritable sense which they should have. I hope later to
make use of these means to establish in all its splendour
the thought of one of the greatest men who has ever appeared
upon earth.
After this first difficulty, many others will successively
arise, none the less important. One will ask if love should
be the principle of sociability and of civilization in man, as
I have declared it to be; why this need, transformed into
passion, does not manifest itself in the two sexes in the same
manner; whence comes this difference in the transformation
of sensation into sentiment; and urging the curiosity as far
as it can go, why two sexes exist in nature. To this I will

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536 H~rmeneutic Interpretation
reply that this existence of two sexes, of which one asks the
cause, belongs again to cosmogony, as well as the very differ-
ence which constitutes them. This existence and this differ-
ence must be received by history as certain facts, from which
all others issue and beyond which it cannot go without leav-
ing its domain. And as to what are the consequences of
this existence and of this difference, of which the most im-
portant is marriage, basis of the social edifice, if one insisted
that I should enter into all the details, of which a subject of
this nature could admit, one would ask me with all the more
reason to explain at greater length as regards the origin of
speech and the establishment of the languages.
But does one not feel that each of these subjects, if I
had wished to go deeply into them, would have necessitated
a book to each alone? I could only indicate in mine, the
principles and choose among the consequences the principal
ones, those which could throw the most light upon that
which was to follow, leaving to the sagacity of the reader the
care of finding others. I know well that an attentive reader
could ask me many questions upon these commencements
of the Borean civilization; for example, why marriage, which
I give as the basis of the social edifice, was not felicitous.
This question and many others which I have sketched de-
signedly must find their solution in the ensemble of the work.
The history of Mankind offers unceasingly the striking proof
of this truth: that a particular evil is often necessary in
order to bring forth a general good. Here, moreover, is the
reply to the difficulties which one suggests; it will serve to
clear up many difficulties of the same nature. Marriage-
the inevitable consequence of the existence of the two sexes,
and the necessary difference between their manner of think-
ing after having felt-marriage was not entirely happy,
because if it had been it would have limited there the course
of the Borean civilization; Man, satisfied with his lot, would
have desired nothing, sought nothing beyond it, provided
that he could not desire or seek anything beyond happiness;

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 When All Superstition Disappears 537
he would have bent himself to the yoke of the woman, would
have become effeminate as she, and his race would have been
inevitably destroyed before having passed through any of
the more elevated phases of the social order. If woman was
unfortunate at this first epoch of civilization, it was princi-
pally in accordance with her nature, that does not permit
her to give birth to anything without pain, either in the
physical order or in the moral order. It is true that her
faults aggravated her evils; but her faults were then a con-
sequence of an anterior fault, the knowledge of which depends
upon cosmogony.
It has been seen how war, always inevitable between the
two races, because the races all strive for the dominion and
usurpation of the earth, had developed much useful know-
ledge in the White Race, and had put it in condition to
struggle advantageously against the Black Race. I have
on this occasion shown the origin of a number of institutions
and usages, whose principle, plunged in the obscurity of
centuries, had escaped the researches of the savants. No
doubt one has observed with interest that first organization
of the Celtic people, whose indelible imprint is found more
or less strong among the nations which hold to the same
stock. I venture to flatter myself that one will excuse cer-
tain hypotheses of detail, in favour of the striking truth of
the whole. If the situation of Voluspa, for example, has
appeared too poetic, one ought at least to agree that she
was not beyond probability, since all the civil and religious
usages preserved by our ancestors confirmed the possibility.
It was impossible that a picture of this dimension, exposed
to so many storms and lasting so long a space of time, should
not offer some gaps to be filled and some features to be
restored.
At the close of the First Book, the intellectual sphere
was already developed in the Borean Race and the cult
was born. The Second Book has showed the consequences
of this first development. Let us consider here, how poll-

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538 Hermeneutic Interpretation
tics, at first influenced by religion, has reacted upon it; let
us observe that the first schism which was manifested among
the Celts, that which gave birth to the nomad peoples, has
been purely political; and let us remember what I said in
this last book, that all the quarrels which one has inappro-
priately called religious, all the schisms, have not drawn
their principle from the very essence of religion, but only
from the forms of cult, of which politics had taken posses-
sion. An observation none the less important, relative to
superstition and fanaticism, can be made in this Second
Book. It can be seen how often one has been mistaken in
accusing religion of these excesses to which it was a stranger,
and above all how one is wrong in believing that theocracy
could have led to them. It is, on the contrary, theocracy
which puts an end to it. Superstition and fanaticism reign
only where the forms of cult, in which Destiny or the Will
of Man have seized the dominion, have succeeded in usurp-
ing the place of Religion and in stifling the voice of Provi-
dence. As soon as Providence finds an organ capable of
making its voice heard, a prophet, a theocrat, a sovereign
pontiff, an envoy worthy of it, all superstition disappears
and human blood no longer inundates the altars.
It is useless for me to review the foundation of the Uni-
versal Empire by that extraordinary man whose glory
filled the universe under the name of Rama, the Ram;
Scander of the two horns; Osiris, chief of men; Dionysus,
the divine intelligence; Giam-shyd the dominator of the
Universe, etc. I have said almost all that I could say,
without falling into details foreign to this work. But let
us notice again that it is only in admitting the existence
of this empire that one can account for a multitude of
usages common to all the peoples; as, for example, giving
a crown to the king, and a mitre to the pontiff; of elevating
their thrones a certain number of degrees and of placing
a sceptre in the hand of the one, and a pastoral crook in the
hand of the other. The certain form of .the altars, the

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manner of prostrating oneself while invoking the Divinity,

all bespeaks a universal rite whose impress is not effaced
through the infinite variations which the cults have under-
gone. Can the wise philologists see without admiration
that the essential forms of language are the same every-
where and that the general grammar, resting on the same
bases, attests the existence of a universal tongue of which
one finds remnants spread about in all places? If it is a
question of poetry, can one doubt that the rhyme admitted
by the Chinese and by the Arabs, and the rhythm known
by the Hindus, as by the Scandinavians, partake of the
same origin? Look at music; does not this admirable art,
wherever it is known, receive seven notes from one octave
to another, divided into five tones and two half-tones?
How will one explain all these things and an infinity
of others of which it would be too long to speak, if one
does not consider them the relics of a religious and political
unity which has become divided? One must believe on
this point the sacred books of the Hindus and admit as
an incontestable verity the existence of the Universal Em-
pire of Rama. It is from these sacred books that I have
drawn the greater part of the things that I relate concerning
the dismemberment of this empire, and concerning the
cause of the political schisms, which brought about its
downfall. In general, it is in the sacerdotal archives of the
ancient nations that I have searched for the necessary
documents to compose my Third Book, and to conduct the
history of Mankind from the appearance of Rama to that of
Pythagoras. This first part of my work can therefore be
considered as more particular, rational, and philosophical
than the second, which is supported by more positive docu-
ments and does not deviate any more, as to chronology of
facts, from the ordinary history.
This then, is why I have purposely divided my work into
two parts, so that the second, composed of stronger material,
should give a support to the first, through the connection of

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540 Hermeneutic Interpretation
ideas and the chain of events. I do not believe that an
observant reader has failed to recognize this chain, nor that
he has been able to consider as simple hypotheses, things
generally unknown, it is true, but of which the known things
are presented to the mind only as quite simple consequences.
The first part, although less voluminous than the second,
contains however a much greater quantity of important
facts and includes a lapse of time much more considerable.
One can observe three principal epochs: the first extends
from the dawn of civilization in the Borean Race to the
appearance of the Divine Envoy among the Celts; it is the
ascending movement. The second includes the appearance
of this Envoy and the establishment of the Universal Empire,
to the first symptoms of its decline announced by the
political schism of the Phrenician Shepherds; it is the social
order, stationary in its greatest splendour. The third,
contains the entire duration of this decline from the first
weakening of the moral knowledge to the first approach of
the darkness; it is the descending movement. The second
part includes also three epochs, but much more limited: that
of the twilight, where one observes a sort of combat between
the light and the gloom; that of complete darkness, and that
of the ascending movement which recommences. These three
epochs, which are not equivalent in duration to one of the
ancient ones, represent only an interval of about three
thousand years. One can date the first of these last epochs
from the taking of Troy by the Greeks; the second, from
the downfall of the Roman Empire; and the third from the
commencement of the Crusades. This last epoch is not ter-
minated, and although all may augur, by the increase of
knowledge, that it ought to be for us the morning of a fine
day, we cannot deceive ourselves, nevertheless, that this
morning of the rebeginning of our Social State has been
disturbed by many storms.
If one would take the trouble to reflect upon the causes
of the most violent of these storms, called French Revolu-

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 Causes of the French Revolution 541
tion, one will see that they hold to the first forms of civili-
zation that the Borean Race has received at its origin.
One can unravel the traces by going back over the flood of
centuries and be convinced that it is to the precocious and
extraordinary development which the Will received in this
race, that the shocks, more or less strong which it has expe-
rienced at various times, should be attributed. This volitive
development, indispensable in order that the White Race,
exposed early to the attacks of the Black Race, should be
preserved, struck it with an indelible character which has
followed it in all the phases of its Social State, and has in-
sinuated into all its political institutions, civil as well as
religious, these extraordinary forms, which the Black Race
or the Yellow Race, called before it to bear the sceptre of
the earth, had never known. In these two races, the Will,
early submissive to Destiny, had supported its yoke, scarcely
ever feeling its weight and without seeking to throw it off;
whilst, on the contrary, in the Borean Race, the Will has
always submitted with difficulty to this yoke of Necessity
and has freed itself whenever it was possible from it. This
is the origin of the difference, which is always noticeable
between the peoples of Asia and those of Europe, notwith-
standing the fusion which has many times been effected
between the Oriental blood and the Borean, and even in
spite of the Universal Empire that the Celts of Borean origin
have exercised over the whole hemisphere. The people of
the Yellow Race, although they had to submit many times,
now to those of the Black Race and then to those of the
White, have always preserved their spirit of necessity and
stability, whose force has finally, at least in Asia, enchained
iri the long run the spirit of liberty and of revolution, with
which the Celts have always been imbued.
Europe, veritable seat of the White Race, place of its
origin, and principal hearth where its force is concentrated
and preserved, has been particularly the theatre where this
spirit has displayed all its vehemence; it is there that the

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Will of Man has manifested its greatest power. If this Will,
less proud, could have recognized the action of Providence, at
the same time as she opposed hers to that of Destiny, it
would, without doubt, have produced magnificent results;
for liberty, which it made its idol, constitutes its intimate
essence and emerges from the Divinity itself; but it has never
appeared to fight the necessity of Destiny and attempt to
overthrow its productions, except to raise itself upon their
debris, and place itself by their means above Providence.
This could not be; because its greatest efforts tended to
produce only political storms, by which the Social State
has experienced violent disturbances rather than progress,
and received rapid flashes rather than lasting light. I agree,
however, with volitive men, that these storms have often
had their usefulness. No doubt, as in the elementary world
tempests which trouble for a moment the planes of the air,
heaping up the clouds to deliver them to the fires of light-
ning, have the incontestable advantage of purifying them;
political storms have also the advantage of purging the social
world and can by their very disorder re-establish harmony;
but it would be foolish to desire these unseasonable tempests
and unbounded storms and to consider these formidable
movements as spectacles worthy of admiration and sacrifice
thus the hope of agriculturers and the welfare of the nations
to the pleasure of contemplating its terrible effects and
sanctioning its ravages.
I have expressed my opinion regarding the French Revo-
lution. To be useful, it must be stopped, and to stop it,
the only power which can do this must be invoked. The
Will of Man was the motive in it; I have said it often; I
have proved it in all ways. Destiny, which it had van-
quished, has again the advantage, not because it has been
stronger, but because it is divided by an inevitable effect
of its nature, and of the universal progress of things. But
prophetic men would be greatly deceived if they believe this
triumph of Destiny assured: it is not at all; its absolute reign

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 Storms, Political and Elementary 543

in monarchy has become impossible, for the reasons that I

have clearly indicated. The fusion of the Will which has
been tried in emporocracies and in constitutional monarchies
cannot last; because Necessity and Liberty which are two
extremes can unite only by a medium which is lacking in
these two kinds of governments. Engaged in seeking this
medium in purely political things, I have sought it frankly
but in vain; I have seen only mainsprings more or less in-
genious, more or less strong, which for a certain time can
make these political machines which are called mixed govern-
ments, move. I have indicated these mainsprings, but I ad-
mit, disapproving of the usage; for as ingenious as a machine
may be, admirable as a mechanically moving statue may be,
an organized being, animated by life, would always be worth
much more.
Now, what is this life which these governments lack and
that one can summon there? What is this means, alone
capable of uniting two powers as opposed as the Will and
Destiny, Movement and Repose, Liberty and Necessity? I
have said it boldly; it is Providence. That I may have had
the pleasure of showing by what manner this divine power
could be called into political institutions, is what the experi-
ment alone should have the right to demonstrate; and an
experiment of this nature is not in the hand of any ordinary
man. The people themselves are not likely to have it; and
it is on account of this, as I have explained, that I ought not
to expose to light the chapter which enclosed its elements. I
can but hope that a man exalted enough might present him-
self, a monarch powerful enough, a legislator placed in favour-
able enough circumstances, to attempt this experiment and
succeed there; his glory, above all glories, should then have
limits as extended only as that of the Universe, and for
duration a term similar to that of the last century where the
last people of the Borean Race lived.
But what is the ultimate question? For what purpose
are all the preparatory forms indicated in the suppressed

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chapter? It is a question of coming to the nomination of a
Supreme Pontiff, whose sacerdotal authority all Europe may
recognize; it is a question of finding the simple but secret
ways, which lead to this important act; finally it is a question
of making the forms which will be employed, participate at
once with those of Providence, the Will of Man, and Destiriy.
This Supreme Pontiff, who, according to what I have already
said, could be that very one who exists today, provided he
had recognized the authority which will appoint him, would
be by the very fact of his appointment vested with an august
and holy character, and with a veritable sacerdotal power.
He would extend his pastoral staff over entire Europe and
over all the nations which would participate in his cult;
his moral influence would not be illusory or of no value as
it is today, because it would no longer be the fruit of ignor-
ance or of usurpation, with which one has perhaps too justly
reproached it, but the fruit of learning and the legitimate
result of a general assent, of a sworn alliance between peoples
and kings, the Will of Man and Destiny. This Sovereign
Pontiff would then become the organ of Providence and its
representative on earth; he would hold in his hands the bond
so much desired, which would unite the three powers in
one and which would hold the Universe for a long time in
permanent peace. As representative of Providence and
its sensible organ, he would not only dominate over the
diverse cults which would follow the nations subject to his
. august priesthood, but over the very essence of religion from
which the cults would draw their force. He could, accord-
ing to the needs of the peoples and the kings, according to
the increase of knowledge, the advancement of the sciences,
and the progress of civilization, modify the dogmas of reli-
gion, enlighten its mysteries, and carry in Truth the progres-
sive development, which is in all things. Religion no longer
stationary in the midst of the general government, far from
troubling this movement, would regulate its march by favour-
ing it. Schisms would become impossible so long as the

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 A Representative of Providence 545

Unity would not be broken; and the cults, in order to refonn

themselves, would no more have occasion to excite any stonn
in the governments. They would be in the hands of the
Supreme Pontiff and the other sacerdotal chiefs, who would
dispose of the fonns according to the character of the peoples
and the climatic positions. Thus men would nowhere be
encumbered with these inflexible chains which are repugnant
to their nature. Truth, ever more brilliant, would become
more and more dear to them; and Virtue, which would be
their happiness, would no more be a vain phantom doubted
by the oppressed.
A Supreme Pontiff, thus constituted, thus vested with
the force of the three great powers of the Universe, would
become without doubt the highest person of the world. Em-
perors and kings who would reign under the shadow of his
moral influence would exercise over all civil things a temper-
ate but steadfast power. Never would revolt or sedition
approach their throne; never would they be a butt for the
furies of the factions or the plots of the ambitious, because
the factions would have no issue, and the ambitious would
find success only in the way admitted by honour. These
dreaded shocks, which one calls revolutions, would be un-
known because the Will of Man, freely exercised and daily
satisfied, being able to make its voice heard at any time, and
besides, seeing that it was well represented and sustained,
would have no interest to risk losing all its advantages by
struggling against two powers which would inevitably crush
it in uniting together against it. The position of the Will
would be exactly that of Destiny and even that of Provi-
dence. Neither of the two powers could usurp absolute
dominion, even if it tried, because it would always meet,
at the least movement that its own representatives would
attempt in their own interest, an insurmountable object
in the spontaneous union of the other power with the Will.

- The wars of nation with nation could never take place

by motives of ambition or personal interest, because these
35

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546 Hermeneutic Interpretation
motives, at the instant divulged, would attract upon the
turbulent nation all the united forces of the other nations.
Besides the morality and immorality of things being in the
hands of the Supreme Pontiff, it would suffice that a war
should be only declared by him immoral, that, in the very
nation which would undertake it, the instruments which
might serve it, should not be found. The only wars possible,
if Europe could have any, would be those which foreign
enemies might necessitate, or the perjured nations, so insen-
sate as to welcome the revolt, or sanction the crimes of a
usurper or a tyrant. Thus would be realized a very beautiful
idea, which has been lately conceived, and which one has
believed possible to be contained in what has been called
the Holy Alliance, this idea, worthy by its grandeur of the
august monarch who had welcomed it, has not been able to
be contained in the diplomatic frame given it, for the reason
that politics alone had fashioned this frame, that the Will of
Man was not there, and that Destiny alone, although acting
in the name of Providence, could not replace the two powers
which had likewise refused its support.
Calling Providence into these governments, by admitting
three principles and consequently three chambers instead
of two, one would see reborn, as by enchantment, those three
states of the ancient Celts, of which the fierce followers of
Odin, the Goths, had seated upon the debris of the Roman
Empire only an image, grossly outlined and deprived of
life. The three chambers would enclose actually the States-
General of the nation, and would offer expression of the
three universal powers, whose unity of force would reflect
itself upon the inviolable and sacred person of the king.
Above this united political power the Supreme Pontiff would
be raised, enveloping a great number of these political uni-
ties in his intellectual unity, and residing in a holy city,
that all the nations submissive to his pontifical authority
would swear to respect. The violation of this holy city and
that of its determined territory would be regarded as most

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 Establishment of a Holy City 547

odious impiety and a most enormous crime. He who would

dare, armed and with hostile designs, to cross its pacific limits,
would be doomed with anathema and given over to the
execration of mankind. It is upon the veneration, which
the sacerdotal chief inspires as representative of Providence,
that all the social order is founded. The respect which
one bears to the king and the obedience which one owes to
the magistrates speaking in the name of the civil law comes
only afterwards. If this veneration fails in an empire, all
fails; the respect for the prince is soon effaced and obedience
is withdrawn and evaded. Force is then ooliged to show
itself; but force is a two-edged sword which inevitably
wounds those whom it serves.
After the appointment of the Supreme Pontiff, the most
important act would no doubt be the choice of the city that
this august chief of religion should inhabit. This city
must be by unanimous consent declared holy and inviolable,
so that Providence might be able to make its voice heard
without the fatality of Destiny, or the liberty of the Will
ever being able in any way to disturb its influence. A Sup-
reme Pontiff who can fear anything whatever is of no im-
portance; it is despicable when he can say that he has fear
of anything except God, or Providence which emanates from
Him. A monarch himself ought never to be restrained in
anything. He ought never to say that he has been, because
that can never be. If he finds himself in such violent cir-
cumstances that the Will of Man crushes Destiny in him
he ought to die and not to flinch. Let him be aware espe-
cially not to recognize judges; he has none outside of the
Supreme Pontiff. With whatever name other personages,
sacerdotal or laymen are adorned, with whatever authority
they say themselves to be momentarily vested, they are
never anything but his highest. subjects. Besides, their
persons are not inviolable, whereas that of the king is.
They are not inviolable because they do not constitute by
themselves alone a unity, whereas the king constitutes one.

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The unity which has constituted a Supreme Pontiff, beh1g
still more elevated, the person of this august representative
of Providence would be not only inviolable, but would
communicate also the inviolability to all that it wished to
render inviolable.
As soon as the sacred alliance, whose possibility I have
shown without divulging the means, would be effected
among the European nations; as soon as Providence, called
into their governments, would have made these mixed
governments unitarian; as soon as the Supreme Pontiff
would be elected and able to exercise his providential influ-
ence over all the peoples, a thing would happen which, in
the actual state of things would be impossible, or could not
take place without costing torrents of blood and tears; it
would be done without the least shock, in the midst of most
perfect tranquillity. Europe, which for a long time inclines
to form a sole empire, would form it; and the one who would
be called to dominate over kings, under the name of Emperor
or Sovereign King, respected by kings, as much as the
Supreme Pontiff, would proceed by the sole force of things
to the conquest of the world. Then the Borean Race
would have attained its highest destinies; the entire earth
would offer the same spectacle which has already been
offered in the time of Rama; but with this remarkable differ-
ence, that the pontifical and royal seat would be in Europe
instead of being in Asia; men united under the same cult
and under the same laws would recognize only a same God,
a same Supreme Pontiff, and a same Sovereign King; they
would speak the same tongue; would treat each other as
brothers and enjoy a felicity as great as their mortal nature
would admit, during a long term of centuries and until the
end fixed by the Eternal Wisdom.

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FABRE D'OLIVET (1768-1825)

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